2. digital
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Sound Quality of red book CDs vs.streaming

I’ve found that the SQ of my red book CDs exceeds that of streaming using the identical recordings for comparison. (I’m not including hi res technology here.)
I would like to stop buying CDs, save money, and just stream, but I really find I enjoy the CDs more because of the better overall sonic performance.
 I stream with Chromecast Audio using  the same DAC (Schiit Gumby) as I play CDs through.
I’m wondering if others have had the same experience
128x128rvpiano

Showing 2 responses by electroslacker

electroslacker
255 posts
 
I have all my CD's ripped to a laptop in FLAC and played with the latest JRiver feeding a Benchmark DAC2 HGC.  When I listen to Radio Paradise through the same laptop and DAC with their new FLAC format I'm in awe of how good it sounds.  Goosebumps.  I don't sense any sonic improvement on the local ripped CDs, and when I had a Wadia transport, I thought the ripped CD's sounded better than the Wadia source.
electroslacker
255 posts
 
Analog is largely a medium problem--how good is the vinyl cutters, the vinyl stampers, the needles, tonearms, turntables and preamplification?

Digital is a data and compute problem, although the CD is a pretty flimsy piece of crap to put the data on.  If you eliminate the CD, then "data is data" and it's not that hard to get it to the DAC for computation.  Streaming eliminates the piece-of-crap CD from the equation.  So does playing the data out computer memory.  CD will be buried next to floppy disks, cassettes, and 8-track as necessary evils eclipsed by technological progress.
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