Can Streaming from Qobuz or Tidal equal CD Playback?

Audio Systems
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Many times I have read that good CD playback using a well engineered CD transport is the way to go for the best sound quality from digital.

What’s your experience?

Is the dCS Network Bridge while streaming from the likes of Qobuz good enough to compete with a good quality CD transport?

What convinced “you” (if indeed you were convinced) to finally move away from CDs because something like the dCS NB was finally good enough to match CD replay (as opposed to other streamers which did not cut the mustard).

I’m not talking about enjoying the convenience of streaming - I’m talking about pure sound quality alone.

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Hi,

Some time ago, Tidal or Qobuz could equal cd playback…no longer…Qobuz and Tidal easily surpass CD playback :wink:

(I had a NB connected to a Vivaldi DAC, it was already much better than a cd player, now I have the Upsampler, it is better, but the NB is a great streamer, my son can tell you :slight_smile: )

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Chris - I think that the NB may be the exception to the audiophile rule if that is the case!

Many others will refute this (including perhaps dCS themselves) and conclude that the CD transport is still king of the hill.

4

I compared a selection of CDs to locally-stored FLAC rips of the same CDs and could hear no difference.

I could feel the difference though. The CDs were a pain in the arse :slight_smile:

System at the time was a Rossini Player, Vivaldi Clock, T+A amplification and Von Schweikert speakers.

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… do you feel the same is true for streaming direct from Qobuz or Tidal, instead of locally stored FLAC files?

Sound quality wise, not convenience of course.

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Anyway while I am here I will refer you to this website: https://www.jays-audio.com/

… read further down and you will find the following:

*Today, despite the advancement, and evolution of the computer music playback, the convenience of music streaming via PC/streamer, Jacky still believe in the standalone digital CD transports are the best way to reproduce music. *

Redbook CD at 16bit, 44.1kHz is all one needs.

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I’ve never compared them, because I couldn’t be sure I was comparing the same recording from each source.

Either way, Qobuz, Tidal and local FLACs all sound delicious, so I’m happy. This also means I have access to all the music I’ve ever bought, and the entirety of the Qobuz and Tidal libraries. Happy days!

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Sounding delicious resonates well with me … I bet you have a dCS DAC too (I don’t btw - it’s not financially attainable for me over other pressing priorities).

Perhaps as a starter for 10 you can recommend a good used dCS DAC to work with a dCS bridge so I get a flavour of the ring DAC sound (perhaps then I will never look back).

It has to work well with streaming of course.

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In my system (full Vivaldi stack) here is the leaderboard:

  1. Vinyl;
  2. SACD;
  3. CD
  4. Hi-res files;
  5. Qobuz streaming.

Wish 4 and 5 had the same SQ as 1 and 2!

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sometimes streaming wins- sometimes my flac ripped (on Melco) music wins!

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@T38.45 has much of the answer - it all depends.

Firstly streaming covers two different activities; local streaming from your own files ( which may be copied from a CD) or files of higher resolution which should offer better sound. It may otherwise concern streaming from a distant service which may or may not offer higher resolution for individual titles. So already many variables apply.

Even if we discount the above it is difficult to arrange a completely fair comparison as the interface between, say, a silver disc transport or network card to processor will usually not be identical. Whilst we talk about making comparisons even two copies of nominally the same CD may not sound the same e.g. American v. British pressings.

It also depends on the equipment , for example the stature of CD played on my Rossini CD transport is significantly superior to its Paganini predecessor nor is streaming via Network Bridge of the same quality as via Vivaldi Upsampler.

So there is no universally applicable answer.

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What convinced me to switch (in the mid 2000’s) was the discovery the Logitech Squeezebox could get pretty damn close to the sound of my Meridian CD player after the CD player decided ten years of my music was enough for one lifetime!

Suddenly, the Squeezebox gave me the flexibility to listen to any track I fancied without locating the relevant CD, putting it in the CD player (and the previous one away) - only to repeat, on occasion, the exercise a few minutes later.

If I had the money, I’d probably get a Rossini player too (assuming I’d had a chance to compare it against the streaming input and heard a difference), but I bought a better music streamer instead. That’s not to say people shouldn’t buy disc players, just that I recognise my priorities are shifted (very slightly) towards listening convenience.

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I would certainly rip all my cd’s using a good quality disk drive like a melco D100 with a better power supply to say a melco N10 or the new one, or something off the same quality.
Then see how the vivaldi player gets on, it might still come out best, or not. But if they sound the same then going forward the ripped way will be best, as it will cost less, plus you can download to it, stream it all round the house, takes up far less room, no more cd’s to store, much easier access to them all, no worries about the vivaldi transport going wrong in the future.
Only real pain is ripping all the cd’s.

But i would certainly try it, i did and never used my rossini drive again, and now with vivaldi gear, i wouldn’t buy the vivaldi transport

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To rip CDs accurately you need to use a program that validates the ripping. to do this requires something like accurateRip or dbpoweramp. Rips are also automatically checked against a database of samples of other validated rips of the same repertoire .You use your ordinary computer and a USB optical drive ( about 25 gbp, everything needed should be under 100 gbp).The program provides all sorts of options to choose from .g. .wav or FLAC etc. As the rip is validated to be 100% accurate it cannot be improved upon.

Dbpoweramp is often bought with an accompanying ( bundled) program called PerfectTunes which automatically adds cover artwork and metadata.

As you are not replaying that data just transferring it from place to place multiple speeds allow for albums to be ripped at a fraction of the time that real time replay would take.

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I’m in full agreement with you (using a Rossini 3 stack) except I don’t rip, so it’s
1.Vinyl (SME deck/V tonearm/Sumiko Palo Santos Presentation/Nordost TA cable/VAC Phono Preamp)
2. SACD
3. CD
4. Qobuz streaming

3&4 do swap positions IMO - depending on many factors; CD pressings/mastering are most significant.

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No pc needed at all, in fact i would certainly rather not have a pc in the chain.
Melco D100 is a very good transport, just connect it directly to a melco nas.
Then just pop the cd into the D100 and push a few buttons, thats it.
The D100 does take atleast twice as long to rip compared to a normal disk drive.
You can also use a D100 to play CD’s directly if you run the melco nas with usb, rather then ethernet into your dac.
But ripping and then just play back from the storage is the better way to listen to it.

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It’s a very close call and so dependent on quality of recordings etc, and actual hardware being used.
I had a Nagra CDP that was probably the best sounding front end I’ve ever heard…. Until I swapped out my streamer/dac to go dCS (qobuz) …End game for me.
The Melco rip/store route is a great solution to removing the cd player from the chain as well.

I certainly do not agree with others here that a certain re-engineered, de-essed, limited dynamic range format sounds anywhere near as good as the two formats you asked about.