Don’t real audiophiles own their own media?

2fastdriving said:
"Probably" all the Mofi and AP versions. That's quite a few of the most popular "audiophile must haves".

Have I compared them all? No.

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And I found a whole bunch of Wilson Audiophile Recordings, Reference Recordings, some Mapleshade records, MoFi I have seen but they may be my own from the hard drives. In a nutshell, so much to listen to, I only hope to have enough time to do so....
 
I would say that streaming actually made the audiophile into a musicphile... At least in my case. If sitting on a few hundred best sounding albums is being an audiophile, count me out. There is only so many times I can listen to Diana Krall, Rebecca Pidgeon and a few dozen popular MoFi discs... I go through a hundred albums a week at least just listening to stuff I enjoy and discovering new music I like even more constantly.
 
There are actually 14 albums of Tea for Tillerman between Qobuz and Tidal, including the Deluxe versions... I don't even know which one to begin with...
 
nicoff said:
I am not aware of remastered versions that only appear on LP. To me, it would make little economic sense to do a remaster and just release it in analogue in this day and age. In your “Tea for the Tillerman” example, there are 6 different versions in Qobuz including a 192/24 version. I venture to guess that the Analogue Production remastered version that you are talking about is the 192/24 version shown in Qobuz.
That said, you could be talking about analog versus digital reproduction which is a totally different issue.
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Sorry for the confusion. No, I didn't mean to bring up the whole analog vs digital thing again. I'm saying that the mastering is what I'm finding is most important, and different between the streaming versions and what you will find on sacd and vinyl.

The problem with the 24/96 and higher streaming versions, is that we really don't know what they are. I suppose it is possible that some are analogue productions etc.

I don't believe the "Tea for the tillerman" one is.

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Speaking of quality... Eva's album mentioned earlier. I have the original release, when they finally decided to release it years after the fact, and years after her very untimely death. It was in CD and sounded great, but when they realize these tapes they had may be one of the finest live recordings on record they started releasing better vinyl, etc., versions and the "audiophile" community loved them. Recently the did the entire package, full unedited concert (mistakes and all) in 45 RPM... Oh my God, best sounding that I have heard 😊.

Been spinning since earlier in this thread; on side two of disk three now 😍.
 
How confident are we that our analog rigs, the choice of tonearms/carts/decks/phonostages and especially the meticulous setup required for proper analog performance is up to snuff to compete with 192/24 of streaming?
Asking for a friend...
 
Just a reminder that when we are speaking of media we aren’t just speaking of CDs and SACDs, but tape and vinyl as well. Are any here seriously stating any streaming is equal to tape and vinyl? IMO even CDs beat streaming, and tape and vinyl surpass it even more so.
 
I compare my digital and my analog. Admittedly, my gear is not at the level of many others, however the best I can do is what I have to use in comparison. Setting up a turntable is not that hard, but I also assume that many of the tables some of these folks have are much more involved 😁.
 
Calvin said:
Just a reminder that when we are speaking of media we aren’t just speaking of CDs and SACDs, but tape and vinyl as well. Are any here seriously stating any streaming is equal to tape and vinyl? IMO even CDs beat streaming, and tape and vinyl surpass it even more so.
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Well, you are simply wrong just as I suspected. Hence the explanation of your post based on assumptions that do not match reality of things. What cartridge are you using? Surely a $15k MC cartridge will sound different than a $500 MM. What tape machine and what R2R tape/recording are you comparing here? Do you own much R2R material? Which have you compared to streaming?
 
TheOctopus said:
Well, you are simply wrong just as I suspected. Hence the explanation of your post based on assumptions that do not match reality of things. What cartridge are you using? Surely a $15k MC cartridge will sound different than a $500 MM. What tape machine and what R2R tape/recording are you comparing here? Do you own much R2R material? Which have you compared to streaming?
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No, I think he's right. Vinyl can beat streaming fairly regularly, depending on the master. I rarely, if ever, hear anything streaming beat vinyl. Not saying it isn't possible, but definitely unlikely.

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Randy Myers said:
I compare my digital and my analog. Admittedly, my gear is not at the level of many others, however the best I can do is what I have to use in comparison. Setting up a turntable is not that hard, but I also assume that many of the tables some of these folks have are much more involved 😁.
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Setting up a perfect geometry cart and dialing in your analog rig for all parameters is much harder than many think. I used parallax mirrors and all kinds of setup tools and magnifying glass to setup my SME/V/Dynavector and then quite a few for my sons and a few friends. It is tedious but it pays off. Not one will sound identical to each other no matter what though. So we are starting the comparison with faulty assumptions already.

I suppose streaming can be compromised somewhat although I have not heard it myself and I am not one of those "Ethernet Cables makes a difference" audiophiles... I use quality cables such as Transparent, Wireworld, Cardas, Kimber and a few others but I am not claiming to hear a difference between them. They are just quality for peace of mind. Quality USB cable does not have to cost in the four digits IMHO.... But digital is a lot less fussy than any analog rig be it vinyl or tape. They all need constant maintenance and they wear and tear as does the media. Not so with digital
 
TheOctopus said:
Setting up a perfect geometry cart and dialing in your analog rig for all parameters is much harder than many think. I used parallax mirrors and all kinds of setup tools and magnifying glass to setup my SME/V/Dynavector and then quite a few for my sons and a few friends. It is tedious but it pays off. Not one will sound identical to each other no matter what though. So we are starting the comparison with faulty assumptions already.

I suppose streaming can be compromised somewhat although I have not heard it myself and I am not one of those "Ethernet Cables makes a difference" audiophiles... I use quality cables such as Transparent, Wireworld, Cardas, Kimber and a few others but I am not claiming to hear a difference between them. They are just quality for peace of mind. Quality USB cable does not have to cost in the four digits IMHO.... But digital is a lot less fussy than any analog rig be it vinyl or tape. They all need constant maintenance and they wear and tear as does the media. Not so with digital
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Not so with digital? Do you use Roon? The sound quality of Roon has degraded over the years. Every time they update the software it sounds different. How do you deal with that? What about when Windows updates and causes a sound change? I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of digital music playback.
 
This is the point where we will agree to disagree because even a good decent table with a solid MC cartridge and a nice phono stage walks all over any PCM that I have heard when assuring both are good versions/recordings etc.

Even a bit less expensive table like my secondary Technics with a very good AT MM and a solid value phono stage is preferred to a PCM version, agreeing again on quality versions. When we start talking DSD then there is a ton more to talk about, but that discussion cannot happen with streaming.

And you can ask anyone on this forum, I have always been a very strong digital advocate.

And I believe my digital setup is pretty darn good with top end software and T+A.
 
2fastdriving said:
No, I think he's right. Vinyl can beat streaming fairly regularly, depending on the master. I rarely, if ever, hear anything streaming beat vinyl. Not saying it isn't possible, but definitely unlikely.

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Define "beats" streaming please.. What parameter are you using. Is there a gauge to measure the accuracy of sound? Your ears? Are they musically trained and pitch perfect? Do you play a musical instrument?

I can understand and would agree with "different" presentation. Sure, I like that round, analog bass myself from vinyl. It does not mean it is more accurate, it is just more pleasing to the ear. But then the different cartridges present the BASS quite differently? Is that not so? So what are we exactly comparing here? One has to go through the whole chain of events with analog starting from the cartridge and winding up at the speaker and one must take all kinds of D to A conversion and filters in DACs as well. So what is exactly accurate?

What is exactly beats the other then? A different presentation? You prefer that presentation? Sure, I agree. It is a personal preference but not necessarily accurate or somehow better. Just more pleasing to your own ears.
 
dminches said:
Not so with digital? Do you use Roon? The sound quality of Roon has degraded over the years. Every time they update the software it sounds different. How do you deal with that? What about when Windows updates and causes a sound change? I think you are severely underestimating the complexity of digital music playback.
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I did not say streaming was not subject to flaws. But not nearly as the difference of even a same cartridge with a different VTF and VTA... I use Qobuz windows APP and I can appreciate a slight difference in sound between Roon and Qobuz APP feeding my desktop DAC. So what? It's not the end of the world. Who or how can determine which is right and which is wrong? What about MQA, that sure sounds different to me and I do not like it... But others do. We all hear significantly different it turns out. Physiology wise. Even different ethnic groups exhibit strong preferences to one sound vs the other due to physiological differences and the way the sound is processed based on anatomy of such things as the skull itself...

I am not even sure of what the point of this thread is. It started out on a silly premise that an audiophile needs to hoard music to be an audiophile and it is continuing to exhibit strong objective preferences of the listener. Some like tubes, some like solid state. Some like vinyl, some like digital. Listen to what brings you more pleasure.

To summarize, I like to explore music and I listen a whole hell of a lot! It doesn't cost me to experiment unlike the old days where I would buy CD, SACD and vinyl only to figure out I do not enjoy the album as much as I thought I would.... Don't have that problem with streaming. It is all you can eat buffet and no one blames you for spitting it out if you don't like it...
 
TheOctopus said:
I did not say streaming was not subject to flaws. But not nearly as the difference of even a same cartridge with a different VTF and VTA... I use Qobuz windows APP and I can appreciate a slight difference in sound between Roon and Qobuz APP feeding my desktop DAC. So what? It's not the end of the world. Who or how can determine which is right and which is wrong? What about MQA, that sure sounds different to me and I do not like it... But others do. We all hear significantly different it turns out. Physiology wise. Even different ethnic groups exhibit strong preferences to one sound vs the other due to physiological differences and the way the sound is processed based on anatomy of such things as the skull itself...

I am not even sure of what the point of this thread is. It started out on a silly premise that an audiophile needs to hoard music to be an audiophile and it is continuing to exhibit strong objective preferences of the listener. Some like tubes, some like solid state. Some like vinyl, some like digital. Listen to what brings you more pleasure.

To summarize, I like to explore music and I listen a whole hell of a lot! It doesn't cost me to experiment unlike the old days where I would buy CD, SACD and vinyl only to figure out I do not enjoy the album as much as I thought I would.... Don't have that problem with streaming. It is all you can eat buffet and no one blames you for spitting it out if you don't like it...
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You said digital does not need maintenance like analog does and I pointed out that I disagree. This has nothing to do with flaws. Everything has flaws.

I also don’t think that owning my own music is “hoarding.”
 
dminches said:
You said digital does not need maintenance like analog does and I pointed out that I disagree. This has nothing to do with flaws. Everything has flaws.

I also don’t think that owning my own music is “hoarding.”
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This is getting downright silly now. What maintenance does digital need? The maintenance that FPGA DAC may have an update? That Roon may tweak some algorithms? That your cartridge and your favorite album are moving in the direction of the dumpster with each time you spin it? All of those statements are true...
 
Definitely personal preferences here. Quantity versus quality. I have too much to choose from as it is... Not enough time in a day (or for me time after work for now) to listen to bits and pieces or different versions, etc. I love picking out something I have and enjoying it :). As I said earlier, no judging, just personal preferences... Most important is to enjoy the music!
 
An interesting discussion. Not one I feel will be resolved any time soon, but interesting.

Qobuz user here. Also, owner of a myriad of media as well (hi-res downloads, CD, SACD, and vinyl). For me, the beauty of Qobuz is the instant access to a vast array of music that either a) I discovered via Qobuz or b) I discovered somewhere else and looked up on Qobuz. I realize the version on Qobuz may or may not be the "best" version and often times, if I find a better version, I'll listen to that one instead (including purchasing it). But just having access to that online library for finding new artists and recordings has been awesome. Sometimes the same album on Qobuz is offered as a CD quality and a hi-res quality and I will listen to both. Most times the hi-res quality sounds better, but not always. Same thing goes for Qobuz vs. vinyl. Or Qobuz vs. SACD/CD.

For me, being an audiophile is about recognizing and striving to get better sound within your budget, whether it be through playback equipment or source material.

I started out in high school with a Kenwood receiver, Radio Shack speakers, and a Sony CD player (I added a Fisher tape deck later on). I was all about the WATTS. How loudly could it play? I would not have considered myself an audiophile at the time. I think this is where most people who aren't audiophiles stop.

At some point between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, I discovered that not all watts are the same and that equipment matters. However, it took me another 5-10 years to understand that the source material matters just as much as the gear you play it back on. Looking back, I would look at my college years as "collecting" music. Now, I try and "curate" it instead.
 
TheOctopus said:
This is getting downright silly now. What maintenance does digital need? The maintenance that FPGA DAC may have an update? That Roon may tweak some algorithms? That your cartridge and your favorite album are moving in the direction of the dumpster with each time you spin it? All of those statements are true...
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Significant maintenance. Go over to the Roon forums and see how many people are upset with the degregation of sound quality of Roon. If you don't use Roon you wouldn't know this. Check out how much work Taiko has done to compensate for Roon issues. This is not a minor thing.
 
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