Physical media vrs steaming

[North_Sky]

Well said. I'm not a vinyl guy but do see the appeal. I've always liked the way the music is actually visible on the disc.

Some people can read the music in the grooves of a record.

 

[Vini darko]

Some people can read the music in the grooves of a record.

I still have a tape from an intoxicated evening. When a m8 and me had decks a recorder and no headphones. I was trying to mix just using the bunching of bass on the grooves. It's a terrible mix of epic proportions. We had a lot of fun trying though.

 

[MattHooper]

Some people can read the music in the grooves of a record.

That's one of the things I enjoyed when revisiting vinyl: Actually seeing the music physically represented in the grooves. You can tell slow songs from busy songs, slower movements, etc. Hadn't been used to that for so many years.

 

[FrantzM]

For music. I assembled over 10 years a 3000 CD collection ...then I discovered streaming. I ripped my CD collection and have been using Spotify (70%) and Roon/My Collection/Tidal for the remaining 30%. Happy.

For movies. Netflix 80%, Amazon Prime Videos 19%, a few BD I had make up for the rest. I realized that, at least with my low speed Internet Access that I wasn’t getting the best Picture my PJ was capable of. I have Gravity on BD, the difference between BD and Netflix with my 8 Mb/s Internet access is substantial. “Night and Day” would be a better descriptive. No contest , etc: The physical medium wins by a large margin. Same with Avatar, 5th Element and a few other BD. It was consistent. I have since acquired via fleeBay, a collection of BD mixed with some UHD, 105 titles. I will continue to acquire more titles. The differences in Picture Quality is worth it, for me with my Internet access. As for the issue of real ownership. I haven’t thought about it... yet

 

[FrantzM]

Am I one of the few to find it ironic, he’s using YouTube for his rants? Those rants may ultimately not belong to him.

 

[Deleted member 16502]

I only need to sum up the amount of money required to buy my Spotify library on CD to answer that question for me. Sorry to the artists.

 

[Vini darko]

Am I one of the few to find it ironic, he’s using YouTube for his rants? Those rants may ultimately not belong to him.

Hahahahaha I hadn't even thought about that.

 

[Vini darko]

I only need to sum up the amount of money required to buy my Spotify library on CD to answer that question for me. Sorry to the artists.

One of the best things about CD's is they have never been more dirt cheap. However yes I understand its a mountain not a mole hill.

 

[MattHooper]

One of the best things about CD's is they have never been more dirt cheap. However yes I understand its a mountain not a mole hill.

Never more than dirt cheap? Can I presume you are referring to the "after the CD era" prices?

During the CD-era CDs were often quite expensive, to the point it was a common gripe to complain how badly the music industry was gouging us.
(And helping drive the Napster phenomenon).

 

[maverickronin]

Never more than dirt cheap? Can I presume you are referring to the "after the CD era" prices?

The key word there was been. At least for local and older stuff.

They're still stupidly expensive if you have to import something unusual from another market...

 

[Vini darko]

The key word there was been. At least for local and older stuff.

They're still stupidly expensive if you have to import something unusual from another market...

This is true. I really want Kenji Kawai cinema symphony, £200+ to import from Japan

 

[escksu]

For streaming, quality is largely dependent on the internet connection speed and how good the connection is and the streaming protocol used. If you are getting alot of errors when receiving packets (esp. something thats based in udp) then its going to affect the audio quality.

So i would still prefer my music to be stored in a media, esp. ssd or hdd. But me not a fan of cd so i usually rip the audio out and store as wav file

 

[BDWoody]

For streaming, quality is largely dependent on the internet connection speed and the streaming protocol used...

Beyond having a high enough speed, what else is going to impact sound quality? Are different connections going to sound different, assuming they are all fast enough?

When you say 'streaming protocol,' are you talking about lossy compression or something else?

I've never heard a difference... either it works or it doesn't for me.

 

[Deleted member 16502]

Streams are buffered to account for non optimal connection.

 

[BDWoody]

Streams are buffered to account for non optimal connection.

Which means what, in terms of what I might hear? Let's say that I have a vey reliable 500+ mbps internet connection to start with.

 

[A Surfer]

I use streaming (Tidal) only for exploring new albums/bands. If I like an album I always buy the CD (or flac). I don't want to come back a few years later only to see that the artist isn't in the streamer's catalog anymore.

I also use Tidal much like this, but I can't afford to buy everything that I like so the less compelling material I am content to have streaming access to.

 

[Deleted member 16502]

I'm a mechanical engineer, no networking expert, but I'd expect the buffering buys enough time to discard packages that are found through checksums to be corrupted and fetch them anew, so you will generally get "bit perfect" data. Maybe one of the many IT guys in this board can be more precise.

 

[Sukie]

I'm a mechanical engineer, no networking expert, but I'd expect the buffering buys enough time to discard packages that are found through checksums to be corrupted and fetch them anew, so you will generally get "bit perfect" data. Maybe one of the many IT guys in this board can be more precise.

I'm no expert at all, but I did think that this was the point of buffering. As I understand it there can be an issue with latency and that can cause packets to fail (not sure if "fail" is the correct word). You can measure this using a ping command.

In today's lockdown climate I've needed to use conferencing sites a lot more than I did in the glorious days of pre-COVID. These are particualrly sensitive to dropped packets as everything is live. Buffering, from what I gather, is designed to prevent this when streaming. After all, streaming is not the same as conferencing.

I use my phone to stream music and connect it to my DAC using USB Audio Player Pro. There are various options to change buffer size to improve stability. I do know that my wi-fi connected phone is more susceptible to "jitters" than my Ethernet connected PC, but I still don't notice any audio related problems when listening.

As i say, I'm not an expert, just a Google-happy amateur!

 

[MattHooper]

A pal o' mine writing for Soundstage has a new (well-written IMO) article comparing the "charms" of physical media (vinyl in this case) to streaming:

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/1435-why-i-prefer-vinyl

 

[Vini darko]

I'm no expert at all, but I did think that this was the point of buffering. As I understand it there can be an issue with latency and that can cause packets to fail (not sure if "fail" is the correct word). You can measure this using a ping command.

In today's lockdown climate I've needed to use conferencing sites a lot more than I did in the glorious days of pre-COVID. These are particualrly sensitive to dropped packets as everything is live. Buffering, from what I gather, is designed to prevent this when streaming. After all, streaming is not the same as conferencing.

I use my phone to stream music and connect it to my DAC using USB Audio Player Pro. There are various options to change buffer size to improve stability. I do know that my wi-fi connected phone is more susceptible to "jitters" than my Ethernet connected PC, but I still don't notice any audio related problems when listening.

As i say, I'm not an expert, just a Google-happy amateur!

Hi. When activating usb player Pro does it create noise? It does for me (onkyo hf player too). It easily doubles the noise floor with my devices. It's not particularly noticeable until I use my dac as a preamp into a power amp.