mjw
(Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)
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Once again, you are equivocating. All my replies relate to what I said, and your responses.
Without sounding like a stuck records, this thread is about digital: CD (Red Book) vis-a-vis digital streaming services. So, please keep on topic.
Moreover, I wasn’t commenting on any opinion, but measurement (metrology), which is a bedrock of society. Not many (any?) human endeavours are achieved without measurements. Prediction is not measurement. Measurements may inform prediction, not the other way around. Furthermore, measurements are defined, repeatable, and have a known accuracy.
But I know when to stop flogging the horse, so think we should wrap up this thread of the discussion.
Would not that be a problem for the “other”? Earth orbited the sun even when everyone believed otherwise.
If you are talking about audiophiles’ favorite measure, price, then yes, it has no bearing on the sound quality. Neither do often quoted weight, dimensions, or case color.
Umm, that’s the “do not hear” part.
If you qualify “measurements perfectly match blind test results, but are not accepted by people who want to believe in magic” then yes.
But that’s no more a problem of measurements than people still believing that the Earth is flat. Objective facts remain such regardless of acceptance.
I do have a feeling that you may not necessarily be arguing in good faith.
Please explain to me why it is so damn hard to have a simple discussion about something that can be so easily tested:
Is the sound quality of streaming worse than the sound quality of CD playback?
Instead of addressing the question we get the following:
A streaming may be using a different mastering of the recording. While this may be true it doesn’t addressing the basic issue.
A whole big discussion about measurements. Important, yes, but not germane to the simple question.
Another tangent about the cost of streaming
A tangent about how the streaming data is delivered (fiber vs. cable vs. Wi-Fi)
A discourse on how audiophiles went from hating to loving CDs
And several more tangents which aren’t even worth listing.
What I’ve listed above seems to happen during the course of any discussion which dares to question any of the dogma so dear to audiophiles. Cables, bit rates, bit depths, type of DAC, etc.
First and foremost, high end audio is a business and as a business the main goal is to increase sales and profits. The goal of providing good sound quality is, at best, secondary. So if the business is selling cables then the last thing that business wants to hear is that all good quality, well made cables sound the same. If the business is selling CD players then of course CD playback is better than streaming. The list goes on and on.
Why do I defend the sound quality of streaming? Because about 18 years ago I decided to test the sound quality of streaming versus CD playback. I’m aware that this little test of mine predated the appearance of music streaming services but it proved useful nevertheless.
Here’s what I did.
First I ripped a CD to flac files.
Second I uploaded those flac files to Usenet by encoding them using yEnc, a binary-to-text encoding scheme.
Third I downloaded the encoded flac files and decoded them back to flac.
Fourth I put those downloaded flac files on my Logitech media server (LMS).
Fifth I compared the sound of the flac files being played using a Squeezebox Transporter to the sound of the original CD being played back on my MacCormack CD player.
Sixth I could not hear any difference what so ever and so from that point forward I just continued to stream music without obsessing about the sound quality.
Not exactly. What I’m trying to say that two identical masters of the same recording, one played via streaming, either from a lossless streaming service or from a local music server like Roon, and the other played on CD player will sound exactly the same provided that the same DAC is used for both. Yes, that is a lot of conditions but when dealing with people who are firmly entrenched in their beliefs, one must bend over backwards to cover all the potential canards they will throw in the way. Completely insane but very necessary since people hate to have their beliefs challenged.
Are you that surprised though? I’m not sure what your intention was (and I agree streaming bashing is nonsense), but you ought to know by now that no matter what audiophile subject you bring up, someone is going to say that everything matters, bits are not bits, measurements are useless or misleading, and everything is forever open for debate.
If everyone agrees on a similar set of axioms, it would be easy to discuss the question and come to an answer everyone agrees to. That is seemingly not the case, and I doubt dogmatic approaches from either side would ever solve the issue.
The goal of providing the subjective impression of superior sound quality is vital to sales and profits in this case. And I doubt anyone trying to simply make money would come up with high end ideas in which he or she does not believe in. The number of potential buyers is declining, and the number of sellers rather increasing than decreasing. Not trying to defend anyone selling snake oil or questionable products, but without the necessary enthusiasm you would not sell anything.
The ironic thing is that dogmatic fractions on either side are naming each other ´flat-earthers´. If you want to take that extreme position and ensure no-one from the other position or the indecisive middle group takes your side, go ahead!
I see it more from a global point of understanding each other, learning from each other and pursuing a common goal of achieving increased sound quality and enjoying music. Although in this particular case I clearly side with the ´bit is bit´ fraction while trying to make clear that measurements are indeed useless when it comes to persuading others.
No, I was referring to the favorite measurements of the self declared objectivists dubbed hifi-astrologists, whose measurements are as insignificant on the question of sound quality as the jitter measurements of the ´CD transport sounds better than streaming bridge´ fraction. Unfortunately I cannot elaborate on that as mjw has made clear that we should stay on topic.
The opposite is the case.
I was hoping to point out that a dogmatic position from either extreme side will neither solve the issue nor persuade anyone. Moreover I see that such discussions on questions contrary to technical understanding and common sense are most likely to make both extreme positions appear in a questionable light eventually making the whole hobby less attractive and appearing to be freakish. As mentioned, in this case I side with the ´bit is bit´ fraction, but hostile comments coming from that side on audiophiles in general or people willing to spend money on things others find questionable, is in my understanding contributing to this hostile atmosphere.
Only every high-end cable manufacturer under the sun. They aren’t even hiding that the stuff they are selling is fake, like “Cat 7” cables.
That’s false equivalency. Only one side has any kind of hard fact-based science to lean on. The other one can’t even back their subjective imppressions with a repeatable blind test.
Sorry, but that’s all just a rather flowery way to say “there’s some stuff I don’t like, but I have absolutely no proof that it is not actually true, so trust me, bro.”
You can persuade people to do all kinds of terrible things. It’s not even particularly difficult.
I thought at least some people were interested in objective truth… which is completely orthogonal to what someone may or may not persuade themselves of.
I don’t think it’s bashing. It’s just a statement of opinion.
In any case, in my opinion, when I play content from the internal SSD on my Titan, it has a SQ edge over the same thing streamed. Don’t get me wrong, they both sound awesome. I just hear a difference.
Not really arguing but,… How do you know they are the “same thing” though? Mastering makes a difference. Your local copy might be a different master than what is used on streaming services and might indeed sound better.
Certainly true, but in their eyes obviously irrelevant, as the goal is neither to have a scientific proof nor to pass some blind test. We should not forget that it is mainly a hobby and most people do it for fun.
No. I have given several examples of measurements and specs regularly used by self-declared objectivists which are as contradictive and dubious regarding their audibility and relevance for sound quality as jitter and other claims that different ways of digital transport are distinguishable from each other. A claim which I do not support by any means.
I do not think many music-loving people are interested in objective truth when it comes to a technical hobby promising to bring personal enjoyment. And although I disagree with their claims, I cannot blame anyone for believing things you and me find implausible, as the ones claiming to reveal ´the objective truth´ are offering equally flawed explanations, contradictive claims and dogmatic views on the subject which people intuitively perceive as something guaranteed to not bring joy.
My personal experience with people into what you might call ´audiophile delusion´ is, you never have any chance of persuading them by hard facts which things are irrelevant or they would not hear a difference between them. If you, on the other hand, show people a way to have more fun or understanding of factors which are far more relevant, you might have a chance.
My point when entering this discussion was mainly to plea for a certain level of tolerance allowing different philosophies how to listen to music best. My personal opinion: Claiming that CD sounds better than bit-identical streaming files (or vice versa) is as absurd and unattractive as telling people they must perceive or believe certain things because of measurements.
Isn’t it all about fun and enjoyment?
Absolutely true. It does not even need a different mastering process to constitute subtle yet audible differences. Slightly different level normalization or limiting (applied for lossy encoding further down the production chain) does lead to such level differences as well which might be perceived as superior or inferior when one does a listening comparison.
I always found it useful to rely on Qobuz as they according to my knowledge use the very same files as a base for streaming service and download. That is not a guarantee that a CD release will be identical bit-by-bit, of course.
I make a point of collecting old AAD CD’s and they often sound very different to the same album streamed. This has absolutely nothing to do with streaming vs CD, and everything to do with the version (compression/expansion, etc.)
In my initial post I stated that it was several different YouTubers who were claiming that CD playback sounds better than streaming playback. As YouTubers these individuals are not hobbyists nor are they doing it for fun - they are doing it for money and their claims should, at the very least, be made after carefully controlled testing. Like that’s ever going to happen.
These audio debates get really tiresome since so many people fail to see the difference between an audiophile with no financial stake in a given assertion, like what a big improvement some network switch makes in the sound, and someone, such as a reviewer (paid with money or paid with free or “loaner” equipment) who has a financial stake in a given assertion.
So yes, audio is a hobby but it is also a business and the business side of audio is filled with lots of less than truthful individuals out to take my money from me.
The hobby argument doesn’t hold water no matter how you look at it. “I’m a hobbyist astronomer, so I can claim that earth is flat, because for me, it’s just a hobby, and I don’t care about dogmatic objectivism.”
I guess spending money on fancy audio gear can bring ‘pleasure’, but when you attribute that to improvements in sound quality and try to explain them by questioning established science, it’s expected - and required in my view - to be fact-checked.
Yes, it is called a degree in electroacoustic engineering.
I was rather referring to hobbyists who can afford an AP or Klippel and publish their measurements without understanding how they translate to audibility, hence self-declared.
Obviously, people making a living out of reviewing hi-fi gear on Youtube, were not meant when I talked about ´mainly a hobby´ and ´most people do it for fun´, but rather the addressees of such videos who either believe the stuff or do not.
I agree that people expressing such opinion professionally should ideally be following journalistic standards of verifying their claims previous to publishing them. In the real world, the number of publishers meeting such standards is rather low. And for common viewers, it is very difficult to differentiate what is reasonable or not, partly because the opposite fraction of self-declared objectivists acts as illogical, dogmatic and contradictory at the same time. Publishing jitter measurements claiming there is an audible difference between streaming bridge and CD transport does sound as credible as publishing SINAD measurements far from audibility thresholds claiming to express a difference in sound quality between DACs.
´take my money from me´ would implicate that you are prone to taken an informed decision of buying stuff which from rational point of view would be useless or not making a difference in quality, would it not? I mean, for each and every of these questions, an answer and explanation from objective point is just one google search away, and a lot has been written about blind testing, audibility threshold and how digital audio works. It is difficult not to stumble on the objective point when reading or listening about that. In case of CD transport vs. streaming bridge, not even much of technical understanding is needed to know that bits are bits, just some common sense.
That said, my conclusion would be that people who buy expensive stuff which others regard to be useless, do this in full awareness of its status. This has not always been the case. Before internet appeared, some magazines, dealers and distributors had some kind of monopol on forming the ´public´ opinion, with almost no-one being able to find contrary opinion or solid information. In this situation, like 25 years ago, I would understand your fury and the will to save people from their own delusions.
The problem here is that sound quality is subjective and people do not ask for their opinion to be fact-checked. Not much difference to the opposite fraction, I would say, which makes any common understanding increasingly unlikely. I would be satisfied if a situation could be achieved in which the extreme fractions are not disparaging each other anymore, which in my understanding is ironically damaging the reputation of the common passion of enjoying music as well.
As a card-carrying audiophile, I disagree with that. Most of my friends are into great hi-fi reproduction and most of them stream music at least part of the time. It’s not audiophiles but stick-in-the-mud audiophiles (the same kind that insist vinyl sounds better than anything else) perpetuating this cliche. I would add, however, that while on a month-by-month basis it’s cheaper to listen to streamed music via Roon/hi-res streaming service of your choice, it’s the gear you listen to it on that makes a huge difference. The expensive streamer/server that I’m currently listening to (which I can’t afford) sounds leagues better than my relatively inexpensive PC server/streamer. So to get a really great sound I think a fairly chunky sun of money still needs to be spent!