Well, that should be easy to verify: rip your CDs and stream them.
I have my CDs ripped - I was refering to why a local ripped CD might sound better than the streaming file.
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Oh, sorry for the confusion. I thought you compared streaming with playing CDs. But you can also test streaming locally vs. from service with identical bits if you capture the service stream to a local file.
i think there may be a misconception that those of us who have heard a difference between local vs streamed over the internet are suspect the files are different. they may or may not be, but i suspect the difference lies in other network, CDN factors.
how else to account for differences in Tidal/Qobuz when both are streaming the same 16/44 file?
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Even if you donât believe bits are bits (and you think transports actually make a difference), I see no reason NOT to believe that âbits over networkâ are âbits over networkâ.
There are reasons but this is opaque to consumers right now. A few differences: mastering engineers prepare up to a dozen versions of files to accommodate the requirements of different streaming services, and have to teach their clients which version to send where. Different streaming services also handle loudness normalization differently.
The one sure way to know that files are the same is to capture and do bit-for-bit comparisons. Even then, if you are playing a locally stored file vs a remotely streamed file, youâll be comparing the way your streamer processes the two types of files.
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i donât have a horse in the âwhy.â, and although it is interesting, to me, itâs academic. i trust my ears.
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Whenever I tend to trust my senses, I look at optical illusions and reconsider.
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agreed, except when music is involved.
They donât.
@Uwe_Albrecht @Markus_Hubner Thank you both for the information. Iâll likely try out Qobuz in the coming days, the psudo-science coming from Tidal turns me off to their service.
@Uwe_Albrecht I found this post that you might find interesting. It seems to suggest that the choice of streaming service doesnât affect Roonâs suggestions, outside of catalog selection of course.
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Only on tidal? That could start a whole new thread!
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Donât get me started on hi-resâŚ
In the end all audiophile discussions come down to some version of âit sounds better to meâ with nothing ever resembling a well controlled listening test, nor any clear definition of what âsounds betterâ means.
Hereâs an example of what I mean. A while back my friend and I were listening to and comparing two versions of the great Kinks album âArthurâ.
Version one being the 24bit/96kHz download from HDTracks played via local streamed files from Roon.
Version two being the original all analog vinyl played on my Linn LP12
To my ears the two versions both sounded great with the slight differences, and yes there were very, very slight differences, being far outweighed by the convenience of playback via Roon.
To my friend the vinyl was clearly âbetterâ and well worth all the hassles involved in vinyl playback (so long as it was me doing all the work 
)
So sometimes âbetterâ is very clearly better and other times âbetterâ is a state of mind (and, more often than not, about the money one has just spent to achieve âbetterâ)
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Without ever being there to experience it I obviously agree with your friend!
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This is what it all boils down to⌠me 
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I hope you noticed that I wrote âthe original all analog vinylâ since so much of todayâs vinyl is sourced from digital masters or has some digital in the recording/production chain. To which I say that most modern vinyl is the worst of both worlds: the sound of digital with the inconvenience of vinyl.
However full analog vinyl is indeed quite glorious.
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Iâm admittedly biased towards my opinion on vinyl. Most of my comments are light hearted on here though.
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Yes I know. Itâs quite possible to have an opinion and not be involved in a flame war.
Now back to berating Tidal and MQA
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Qobuz isnât available in Canada otherwise id try it
waiting for spotify HD to drop this yearâŚ
see what it will be, but then it doesnât let roon play nicley
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