Am I the only guy w little or no interest in streaming high resolution?

Because of this thread I started Amazon music just a few days ago, and am seriously reconsidering my listening future. Always been a physical media guy, although recently have been looking at ways to simplify the process. With the amount of new stuff I've listened to over just the past few days, I'm wondering if I need all of the "stuff" involved with listening.

I signed up for Tidal's trail about a year ago, but never really gave it any effort and so I let it go. Although Amazon sounds pretty good, it's not hi-rez. This concerns me. If this trend continues in my listening, I may revisit Tidal.

And if streaming really works for me, I could see myself going with a simple system with a streaming device and a pair of KEF LS50Ws. This would be a huge change for a gear head like me.

 

@timind , Tidal HiRes sounds really good and a large collection of music.

 

And that's the thing, you're able to see the purpose it serves. How many times have you heard a track, thought well if the album is that good, I'll play it all the time, purchased said album and found that track was really all you liked? I do one streaming service which costs me about the cost of one budget CD per month and as you said, I can discover (or re-discover) all kinds of music.

 

You can get a 3 month free trial from Groupon. Just start the trial with a different email address.

 

That HAS to be a joke. He mentions not taking streamers serious as music fans then brags about his Bose setup.

 

Which streaming service has the most music on it? ...

 

I only stream my own rips...

 

So do I, although dipping my toes in Spotify.

We haven’t yet developed a name for listening to music files stored locally. It’s really a halfway house between full blown streaming from a subscription service and listening to our own CD/LP collections.

Although, this could involve the creation of playlists of individual tracks or singles, I suspect most of us that listen to our own rips and downloads are still essentially album orientated.

My teenage sons stream Spotify on their phones via headphones, car stereos or any system that’s available such as a little mini hifi system we have in our kitchen (I am a relatively old Dad). They could access some of the music locally on my NAS but they just don’t do that - it’s all so very old hat.

However, their listening is always individual favoured album tracks or singles. Their mixed playlists are very much like the tapes I used to have on my little reel to reel recorder and later Phillips cassette recorder I carried around in my havasack at their age.

Like most of my generation, I quickly moved on to albums because of fashion at the time and the physical format of the LP, cassette, 8 Track and, later, CD. I don’t know if my boys’ generation will ever move to albums without the discipline of these mainly album based formats.

 

I'm just to set in my ways..I have a massive collection which satisfies my needs and I know the source of each song...I really have no need to go elsewhere...

 

One of the results that showed up on that search is this cnet article: Best music streaming app: Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon and Google Play compared From the second paragraph of the article: "While most advertise catalogs of 40 million songs, that's the least interesting thing about them these days." I have to believe that would be true for any of these services to be competitive. I would just pick one that fits your needs best and give it a whirl, knowing there's usually a free trial period and it's not that hard to cancel.

I know Tidal is popular here, I gave it a try and didn't care for it. Same with Spotify. Can't speak for Apple music, but I would think if you have that platform, folks like the uniformity. I do Google Play Music since I signed up when it first came out so I get an early adopter price. Plus I get YouTube Red with that subscription for ad-free viewing. Since I'm a cord cutter, I use that and Amazon Prime for my video needs.

It hasn't been entirely without complications since last Summer there were issues with a software update related to Bluetooth that wiped out the downloads I had tied to my subscription. Now to be clear, it didn't clear music I had manually put on my SD card, but albums/stations that I downloaded through the service. Then somehow Google Play saw a third storage option late last year or very early this year (no clue how that happened) which wiped it again. 30+ GB of data, very frustrating. Had to reload over WiFi and I wasn't alone with this issue.

I do see folks mentioning that you have to keep paying for full functionality of Music streaming services. How exactly is that different from any other service, like Internet, phone, or video streaming? I bet I pay a lot less for access to music than you pay for physical media per month. And I was able to upload titles from my library that weren't available through the service. It seems that sometimes here there's a religious fervor over what I try to approach as a hobby.

 

Thanks for that article.

 

I agree that using the same word for listening to Spotify or music from my hard drive creates a lot of confusion in this kind of debate, but I'm not sure there is a correct or incorrect use of the word here. Linn calls its network music players "Streamers" for example and I wouldn't know what else to call accessing music on my home network other than "streaming".

But yes, there's a big difference between listening to my own collection from a NAS or hard drive and streaming music from an online provider. The former can sound as good or better than listening to a CD player (obviously depending on the gear and files used), the latter can vary in quality quite a bit (pun intended).

I personally went for file based listening many years ago and never looked back. When I buy a CD/DVD-A/SACD/BR-A nowadays it only gets used once for ripping.

 

I don't care for streaming except as a method to sample new music and to find music I've been looking for. At present I don't have ready access to wi-fi so that kind of streaming is not available to me. Instead, I use on-line services like YouTube to help me find new music and locate other music. However, if I wish to keep the music I buy it since I consider any media received via streaming/online as non-permanent and subject to disappearing at any time.

 

I didn't care too much, until I did! Now I LOVE hi-rez digital delivery. One of my favorite things to do is grab albums form either HDTracks or 7-Digital, load them to a flash drive, which plugs into the front of my pre/pro, then I control everything from my iPad. It's glorious.

 

No interest.

 

To add to my previous post since I didn't mention it: For me, when it comes to audio quality Red Book is good enough for me. My own ABXY testing shows that I can't really tell the difference between Red Book and a LAME encoded MP3 at 320kbps. At points I could sense a small difference but I could not point to which was clearly better.

Plus, while it is possible that hi-res may be better than Red Book, I view it as a case of diminishing returns, a trade off between audio quality and file size (an increase in the audio quality but the files are more than 4 times the size of Red Book). A well-mastered Red Book file is good enough for me.

 

It is so typical of human nature to be stubborn and firmly wedded to old habits. I’m like that in a way, though it’s been money that has been my biggest barrier to adopting streaming. But I am being forced into abandoning my stubbornness because of an unchangeable circumstance in my life - getting old. And deteriorating eyesight. Streaming from my iPad to my stereo systems would really make my life a whole lot easier.

Trouble is, I am finding it really very expensive to buy the gear needed to listen through my well loved and very good quality stereo systems. A big barrier is my desire to match the necessary streaming gear to the same level of audio quality as my good stereo systems. Yes, I could buy a Sonos For $350 and start streaming the next day, but that’d be a LoFi solution. Besides, I want to listen to MY music, which means my CDs need to be ripped and stored, (and sadly, my LPs left behind). Then they need to be stored in a NAS and attached to my router so it is available whether or not my desktop computer is on. That’s a chunk of money right there. Then I’ll have to budget many times that to buy a Network Streamer to merge that digital stream into my very good quality stereo systems and listen at CD quality or better. Incidentally, that’s where my stubbornness lies - no way do I want to listen to mp3 formats via crappy phone and tablet speakers. And darn, that means I have to be prepared to spend big bucks. Network streamers can be really really expensive and that’s turning out to be a pretty big barrier for me. I am also finding complexity at every point. There’s a learning curve.



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KISS, keep it so simple. You don't need a NAS, network streamer or even an internet connection. In fact, preference is not to pollute the system with any network noise. PC server, SATA HDD, DIY clocked and powered direct to the DAC, no USB cable, use adapter (USPCB is as neutral as they come). No separate amp/preamp direct to high efficiency speakers. Done!

For streaming, I still use a thing they call radio, it's amazingly portable!

 

I have a question that may not be quite in line with this discussion. Im looking for a free hi rez app player to take the place of my itunes so I can play my flac files without converting them to alac.
Anyone?

 

It’s funny how “streaming” implies a continuous organic flow and yet refers to a succession of digital information.

 

Welcome to the future.

 

Well, Uhmm, your question is more likely completely out of line with this discussion, because I have a burning desire to ♨ answer if it truly helps you enjoy music listening. But I simply have no interest in whatever it is that you are asking about. I am interested in music. But playing around with digital downloads and creating "app files" seems far from enjoying music, to me. It seems more like an organizing and busy-work hobby.

 

If you're system runs on Windows, I'd suggest Foobar200. The UI may not look like much at first, but it can be tweaked and there are very nice skins to have for it.

 

What platform? Foobar is excellent on Windows and iOS. Onkyo HF Player is also excellent on iOS, though you need a one off payment in order to unlock the ability to play hi res.

 

I recently had a demo of Tidal with MQA playing The Nightfly and Satchmo Plays King Oliver against my Mo-fi one-step and Classic pressings. It wasn't even close, so I now have little or no interest in streaming media.