Yet another CD vs High-Res streaming comment

I'm reporting this just out of astonishment for what happened to me:

I've only been listening to high-res (mainly 192 KHz) music for the last 5-6 years, and I have been satisfied with it.

Just the other day, as I was re-organizing my living room, I plugged back an old blue-ray player that I had in a box, and never used for quite a long time. It has a coax out, so I plugged it into a DAC and started playing a CD (McCartney, Flowers in the Dirt).

As my wife walked into the room she stopped, started listening and tapping her foot, and went "Wow, this sounds really good!" To double-check that it was not that album that was particularly good, I played a couple more CD's: same comments... and she didn't know the music was being played on a different device.

How is that possible? I have always been told that there's no difference between high-res music and CD music and if there is, then high-res is better... I play it through a Cambridge CXN v2 so, if not perfect, it's good quality and it's wired to my network... no faults there.

I'd like to hear your opinions about it, did you come across the same findings?

 

What DAC?

 

I have had the experience of switching source formats and having one appeal to me unexpectedly, for a while. Happy listening, in any case!

 

Well at one place I pretty much stream, at the other mostly play SACD DVD-A CD though Oppo UDP-105. Both can sound excellent. If you compare the same exact album and it sounds different, first of all the levels are surely not exactly the same, second the mastering is probably different. CD definitely gets a bad rap, it can sound excellent if well produced.

 

The one that's on the Cambridge CXN v2

 

Oh, sorry. My answer is that I have no idea why this is happening. Typically when sonic differences are big enough that my wife would notice, we're talking major, major, major difference.

And maybe that's not the case with yours... anyway, this would make me question if something is wrong somewhere.

Maybe mastering differences? Though a different mastering would never, ever make my wife (or probably any of my friends) ever notice a difference .

Anyway, I don't know. I guess just enjoy it

 

That's what I thought, but it's hard to guess. Unless the audio signal goes through too long of a journey before reaching my network player (Nas->router->powerline->CXN). The main difference I notice is in mid frequencies: the sound is richer, warmer.

 

Mastering over bit/sample rate.
It can be a huge day/night difference.

 

Difference in DACs? Try routing the CXN via the DAC you used for the OPPO and stream the same mastering as your CD. Still a big difference?

 

If you were to compare a similar CD track and one that is streamed (even Tidal MQA or HiFi), the CD sounds better. Even a ripped file of the CD (using an affordable optical drive and JRiver) sounds better than streaming.

But streaming allows you access to tons of good sound at an affordable monthly subscription. You can discover more music too. Not to forget with streaming we can set up our own playlist and be a couch potato.

 

In my system the same source sounds better either via Download or disc rather than streaming however my streamer is not at the same level as the rest of my equipment and my DAC is (I guess albeit the same manufacturer) better than the processor in my amp.

 

I also have a Cambridge CXN V2 and the DAC is excellent. I can tell no difference between it and my Border Patrol SE-i. I also feel that CD's played through my Rotel CD11 sound better than strictly streaming at any resolution.

 

When I was an active member on Audiophile Style there was some discussion on powerline adapters. Some claimed taking a hit on sound quality because of EMI induced noise if I remember correctly. I opted to go with a wifi mesh system instead which works wonderfully for me.

 

Did you feel it sounded exceptionally good before your wife commented?
Do you think your wife is trying to subtly stop you from spending on an upgrade?

 

In these wife stories she never notices a decrease in sound quality.

 

Dr. Mark Waldrep knows the answer:
Ecoustics Podcast Interview with Dr. Mark Waldrep: Is Hi-Res Audio More Hype Than Reality?

 

Check if the blu-ray player is upsampling the CDs to 48 kHz. There are some blu-ray players that will do that depending on settings.

The catch is that the upsampling is not of high quality. It will sound different than CD played at 44.1 but not better. Just different.

 

OPPO? What OPPO? And the DAC is the same if you read my first message

 

Yes, this makes sense to me. This could be a possible reason. So, if I put some audio files on a pendrive a play it from there it should sound better then striming from my NAS through a power line?

 

LOL! No, I had noticed the difference as well!

 

Mine does: she loves RHCP but finds their albums sound really bad!

 

No upsampling...

 

It's certainly worth a try. Best of luck.

 

Just listened. Really good podcast.

He's pretty tied into the Dolby Atmos stuff, but his insights on CD vs Hi-Res are really interesting and valid, i think,

 

So, you did not notice a drop in quality when you started streaming, but notice it now? Some CD's to me sound fairly good and I used to feel they were better to streaming but not anymore. I now prefer Hi res streaming for the sound, let alone the convenience. But everything is very relative as different equipment and sources will provide different results.