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Is a totally flat speaker really what we want for home reproduction?

Purité Audio

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The problem with streaming is not the dynamic range, but the lack of resolution. Most streamingservices are streaming in lossy formats today. And an other problem i have is that the music is only there as long as the streaming services are there and you pay your monthly fee. While buying music gives it to you whatever happens, and also offline.

But of course, each their preference.
Tidal and Quboz are both lossless, I have my ripped CDs on the SSD and I can’t nor would I expect to hear any differences between my rips and the same album streamed.
Keith
 

Chromatischism

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The problem with streaming is not the dynamic range, but the lack of resolution. Most streamingservices are streaming in lossy formats today. And an other problem i have is that the music is only there as long as the streaming services are there and you pay your monthly fee. While buying music gives it to you whatever happens, and also offline.

But of course, each their preference.
It doesn't really matter because above about 250 kbps vbr or 320 kbps cbr people can't tell the difference. I view lossless streaming as a money grab from audiophiles who know what they want but they don't know why.
 

Aerith Gainsborough

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It doesn't really matter because above about 250 kbps vbr or 320 kbps cbr people can't tell the difference.
Depends on the encoder and the material.
If it contains problem samples, it is possible to abx 320Kbit MP3 when listening to the background.
Not sure about the more advanced codecs though.
 

Waxx

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I do hear a difference altough. And i'm not fan of spending money. The only one i tried that did give me what i want on sound quality is Tidal (did not try qoobuz). And i don't like it when i don't own the files so i can listen without internet connection. The holiday home where i often go does not have internet or 4G coverage (it's deep in the woods in the hilly south of Belgium), but it does has a good soundsystem (Topping D30 dac, vintage Rotel 1412 amp and Harbeth HL5+ speakers), so i can come there with my laptop and external drive with music, but not with any streaming service...
 

Timcognito

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It doesn't really matter because above about 250 kbps vbr or 320 kbps cbr people can't tell the difference. I view lossless streaming as a money grab from audiophiles who know what they want but they don't know why.
I took this test and was better than average but not great. I think if more acoustic jazz and chamber music were used instead of electric music the results would have better for most but just a thought. Try it. I used a Samsung android tablet, Musiland MU2 dongle, and 1More Quad IEM.
 
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Chromatischism

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And i don't like it when i don't own the files so i can listen without internet connection.
Agree 100% with this which is why I download the tracks that I want to listen to most (Deezer currently), even if I were in Airplane mode. I just don't like draining my battery with that radio connection unnecessarily. Even if I had unlimited data (which I don't).
 

clearnfc

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That link talks about the opposite happening, streaming helping us move away from highly compressed recordings. :)

Let me search for that thread.... There are folks talking about comparing the audio file that was downloaded from streaming vs CD. The streaming version dymanic range was squashed compared to the CD one.

There are also a few other threads where pple asking about keeping FLAC versions from loseless streaming and no need for CD. Then other folks rebutted by saying that streaming versions had worse dynamic range. ITs best to rip from CDs than to download from streaming.

Of course, as they pointed out, its obvious. Streaming is commonly used into car audio and portable audio and given the noisy environment, a wide dynamic range can be a problem instead. If its too soft, the noise from surrounding will drown the sound and you have to turn up the volume. Then it will become too loud at times and you need to turn it down...
 

Chromatischism

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It's certainly not going to be proven by reading opinions. We know what kinds of codecs are used and we've seen measurements on ASR comparing various streaming platforms to the originals. I would find those threads.
 

Aerith Gainsborough

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Then other folks rebutted by saying that streaming versions had worse dynamic range. ITs best to rip from CDs than to download from streaming.
That entirely depends on the master. The opposite is also quite possible, given that many CDs are brickwalled till kingdom come and then some. *chuckles*
 

sigbergaudio

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Let me search for that thread.... There are folks talking about comparing the audio file that was downloaded from streaming vs CD. The streaming version dymanic range was squashed compared to the CD one.

There are also a few other threads where pple asking about keeping FLAC versions from loseless streaming and no need for CD. Then other folks rebutted by saying that streaming versions had worse dynamic range. ITs best to rip from CDs than to download from streaming.

Of course, as they pointed out, its obvious. Streaming is commonly used into car audio and portable audio and given the noisy environment, a wide dynamic range can be a problem instead. If its too soft, the noise from surrounding will drown the sound and you have to turn up the volume. Then it will become too loud at times and you need to turn it down...

Streaming services typically have settings that let's you choose whether to activate normalization or not. It's not obvious that streaming services have reduced dynamic range, and they generally do not.
 

posvibes

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The BC1 did evolve but interestingly,
I have only heard the BC1 many, many, many years ago when I was young and had no idea of what the BC1 represented, I heard it in an analogue vinyl set up which was pretty high end at the time and the sound was kind of muffled and chesty, thickened in the lower mid bass as I recall, but it certainly had something in regards to presence and naturalness.

I have a pair of Harbeth C7-es2's and I think Alan Shaw as a young man was a BC1 fan and told a story of a Spendor upgrade to the crossover that offered users the ability to replace themselves which guaranteed a great leap forward in fidelity and he regretted doing the upgrade as the BC1 lost all of its character.

I think the C7-ES2 was a BC1 inspired creation that went a long way to fixing that chestyness (but not completely). @DSJR are you able to shed any light on those circumstances?
 
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