With a streaming service you do listen to what you like. You choose wear to listen to and when. Sure the various services suggest things you may like but you don’t have to listen to them.
Here something you like on TV or read a review of something you like the idea of? Look it up on Qobuz or Tidal and listen to it with no need to buy the CD.
There is an option to play random stuff but you don’t have to do this. For example I love Ella Fitzgerald and a load of other jazz but could never feasibly afford all the CD’s. No problem with streaming. Pay Qobuz £15p/m and listen to as much Ella, Billie, Miles, Coltrane etc as I want
Qobuz then suggests some new avant-garde rubbish I really don’t want to listen to. I don’t play it. Dead simple.
If you are committed to 192khz purchases only, you will find that’s very limiting. I don’t know what type of music or even the diversity of music, suffice to say there isn’t a great deal out there compared to all available music. I’ve heard on numerous forums & by audio reviewers, that’s roughly 5%.
That selection may suit your needs. However, do not think that all ‘high res’ releases sound superior to 16.44.1 (redbook) releases. WIthout wanting to have that discussion here, I believe it’s well documented & supported that not all high res sounds superior. There are a myriad of reasons why this is so - the recording/mastering process being somewhere at the top of the list (imo).
David Chesky (HD Tracks, nee Chesky Records), even said similarly, which certainly countered his business venture, in an interview a few years back. In that time, the quality has improved, but I’d still suggest it’s a mixed bag.
Or - what if the contemporary recordings that were recommended were actually good? And you took the chance and listened? Or listened and decided they weren’t your thing? I love all the artists you mentioned too - but there is great newer music out there that is inspired and informed by those legends.
Again this is the beauty of streaming. You don’t have to buy any music. Listen to it first and if you like it and you want to buy it then you can. Or you can simply store it as a favourite for no cost at all other than the streaming subscription.
I have lots of albums stored in my Roon library that I don’t own or download. They’re streamed each time I play them from either Qobuz or Tidal.
A slight word of caution to doing this is that sometimes due to licensing issues or whatever they get removed from one or the other so if it’s something you really like then it’s still perhaps worth buying.
I am discovering both new new music and new to me music all the time and other than the £15 p/m it’s not costing me a penny. I’m also discovering music I’d rather avoid
As regards to hi res etc. I have a revealing system-it’s not the last word by any means but it’s good enough. A well produced 44.1khz/16 bit ‘red book’ album will knock the spots of a poorly produced hi res one.
That said all things being equal if I really listen I can sometimes here a slight difference between red book and hi res but nothing that detract from my pleasure of listening.
Let me support what has been said here.
I always get the highest resolution version of an album, I never choose what to get based on resolution, and I always get streamed versions (Tidal or Qobuz, have both) when they exist.
I never choose what to listen to based on resolution or local/streaming.
2 % of my albums are 178/192/352 or DSD
20 % are 48/88/96
78 % are 16/44
In the last year, I have added 1000 albums, 99 % streamed.
4825 albums, 1681 local, 3244 streamed
The point is, Roon makes all of this seamless: I have my music, I play it, everywhere.
If you are committed to 192khz purchases only, you will find that’s very limiting.
I did not write that. This is one of the reasons forums can get so heated. People reading qhat they want to read rather than what was written. I said I buy 192khz mainly. I’d rather had the physical cd. However, I can hear the difference on our system. My husband, a trained opera singer who CAN hear, notices the difference without being told before hand what type of file he is listening to. However are a pair of old farts and we could be imagining it.
It may seem daft to have all my cd’s recorded onto my MBPro and backed up several times on expensive ext units, and then store all my cds away.
I buy vinyl I think mainly out of nostalgia. My husband swears they sound better and more ‘real’. There are evebn some weirdos who like the snap, crackle and pop! Niot me. I do however like the covers, the feel, the process of playing them. However, being disabled , record playing rarely goes beyond playing 1 or 2 records. John tho has hundreds of vinyl that cannot be replaced and so the Pro-Ject I bought for him. When I saw his eyes water upon listening to a piano concerto he had, I knew I’d made the right choice. John is likely so many men and isn’t want to showing emotion.
