Top Sound Quality?

What are the Roonies opinion on which sounds best to them…

Their Own Library Rips?
Qobuz?
Tidal?

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Qobuz 96 or 192 kHz 24bit sounds better to me than CD rips in my own library.

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I’d say it depends much more on the recording and mastering than whether the material is local or streamed.

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Good recording beats resolution and source.

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Great question!
Nice to see somebody bothered about actual SQ here!

I would have to say the 192/24 Qobuz albums really do shine on my system.
I do not use Tidal any longer but memory says I preferred Qobuz SQ.

As far as my own library rips, that is still really dependant on the initial CD quality of which we all know varied widely and were very subject to the “loudness wars” with extreme compression on way too many albums unfortunately.

But if it was good to begin with then I find my rip replayed via Roon is usually better than the CD played back through my Oppo.

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My own rips or downloads. But, usually, what ever was the better mastering job.

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Ok, a good recording is prerequisites and most relevant. But based on that, played locally or streamed? In my case, clearly local.

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Oh, if I own the recording I play my local copy.

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I agree that the recording/mastering is THE most important thing…can’t believe how bad some are mastered…like they used a transistor radio for a monitor…

What I was trying to find out is Recording quality being equal…where does the best listening experience come from?

IMHO…I think my rips sound better than Qobuz…never used Tidal

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Not always. I have some fantastic sounding Tidal streams, sometimes bettering the CD rip of the same album - of course in Tidal you do not always (often) know the master you are streaming. Of course for very high quality such as DXD local material can sound spectacular.

My vinyl…

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You need a better DAC! :grinning:

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Nah, my unconscious bias would never accept it!

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Provenance will almost always be the key here IMHO. There can be a few or ten versions of an album. Of those, there maybe one or two that are head shoulders above all the other versions AND they could be redbook or hires. There is absolutely no definitive answer here, it’s really a case by case scenario.

I’m sure most of us have examples of this (e.g. different versions can sound drastically different), which makes streaming even a bit more difficult in some ways, since many times the metadata doesn’t indicate the origin. Additionally, the metadata supplied by most digital downloads is absolute crap as well.

To some its not a big deal, push play, sounds fine. That’s OK. I try and research and find the best one (version) I can based on that info, if / where possible. That’s just me.

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Well if we are looking for the absolute best album VERSION period then of course I will throw on a first pressing or promo copy of vinyl.
Sorry but near impossible to beat…

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Depends on the source material in my setup. Local library / Qobuz.

MQA hahahahahaha 10char

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Don’t wake up Chris!

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Someone will eventually say “audibly lossless is the same as lossless” three times in a row in a mirror.

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I’m awake… :joy: Saved me saying it (without the irony) Works for me :sunglasses:
Ohhh Audibly lossless :joy: Which, in reality, is all that counts …

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