Does local streaming give better SQ than Qobuz online?

Streaming Audio
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Does local streaming give better SQ than Qobuz online?

And, if so, by how much?

And does the difference get bigger, the better your system is?

And is a Core the best way to do it?

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For me the answers are as follows:

  1. Yes
  2. Variable but definitely noticeable
  3. There are options. I use a ROON Nucleus One as I had network problems with Naim Networked devices so got rid of them all, including my Core.

1282 CD’s on my Nucleus and definitely sounds better to me than Qobuz on direct comparison of the same release.

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I echo that, locally stored music sounds better than streamed.

Interestingly both sound better through the sense app although I haven’t rechecked post firmware update.

I do wish Innuos and quobuz would sort out the skipping track issue - it’s really annoying!

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Yes in my experience/opinion.

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Try using the Qobuz Beta app with Qobux Connect. Since doing so the number of track skips, etc has drastically refuced for me. Could just be coincidence, of course.

One thing that is without a doubt; Qobuz Connect sound quality is notably improved over playing same content with Roon. It is also far snappier and the new Qobuz app functionality is excellent.

I used to be skepitical of Roon degrading sound, but there’s no doubt about it if using Connect. I’ve now done loads of comparisons; Connect is consistently in front. Of course, it’s no good for local files.

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Thanks, I rarely use connect as I use the sense app (I have an Innuos zennith mk3)

Will give it a go now! Thanks for tip.

I’ve never used Roon but have and continue to be impressed by the Innuos.

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7

IME local streaming is not “better” than Qobuz and Qobuz is not “better” than local streaming. It depends.

In many cases, particularly with high res downloads I do prefer the SQ from local steaming, but I also have some CD rips which sound inferior to what I hear from Qobuz. I suspect it boils down to different masters.

So no universal best, for me at least.

Roger

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If you notice a difference, it might be because your streamer needs to handle extra electrical noise or processing when pulling and buffering data from the wide area network (WAN) instead of the local area network (LAN). But, if you set up your network well, this shouldn’t be an issue. By the time the data reaches your streamer, it doesn’t even know if it came from a local SSD or a Qobuz server in France.

For users with high-quality streamers that already support Qobuz Connect or Roon RAAT, the sonic gap between local files and Qobuz is pretty much gone. The specific control app you use, like Innuos Sense, also plays a big role in how you hear the audio and how stable the streaming is.

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Qobuz does not allow you to stream .WAV files. In bling testing, done with several people independently, streaming of local .WAV files is way better than streaming of .FLAC/.ALAC files. Try AUDIRVANA for free for one month and stream from your desktop/laptop a few downloads (I would recommend Presto for classical and some jazz, less good options except Qobuz for much jazz ans rock but also HDtracks). Presto allows you to download both the .wav and .flac/.alac. Do it for a couple of albums and judge for yourself. You have one free month to make the decision. My 2 cents. I tried and never came back!

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Fair points! It’s worth noting that with older/legacy DACs, the difference can be pronounced and noticable, the DAC’s onboard processing simply has less work to do with an uncompressed WAV file, with no decompression overhead at all. Some older DAC chips were simply not designed with the extra computational demands of decoding FLAC or ALAC in mind, so feeding them a raw WAV stream can genuinely result in better sound quality.

Note that it does not matter if you use Roon because the Roon Server automatically decodes all FLAC, WAV and ALAC files into uncompressed PCM before sending the audio stream over your network to your streamer/DAC.

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I don’t know enough to have a well-thought out view (aside from reading the internet) on the causes (what you say is one explanation I have read). I would try FLAC/ALAC vs. WAV on Roon too and hear and decide for yourself if there is a difference or a difference worth the extra storage. I am always leery of a priori decisions about what psychoacoustic differences there can or cannot be. My empirical bent, I guess. But maybe you tried already :).

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You forgot the other question: does locally streamed content sound better than CD playback through the same DAC?

For me, the quality chain is:

CD
Local rip streaming
Internet streaming

The variables are complex to untangle though. Even with the same master and same data, I wouldn’t expect them to sound the same. Different processing. Different effects on ground plane noise. Different buffer management. All that irrespective of the data payload.

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Are you saying CD is the best and Internet streaming is the worst?

Why would CD be better than a stored rip?

Presumably you mean if the quality of components and connectors in each case is equal.

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That is what I have experienced. I believe I covered that.

The variables are complex to untangle though. Even with the same master and same data, I wouldn’t expect them to sound the same. Different processing. Different effects on ground plane noise. Different buffer management. All that irrespective of the data payload.

I could add to that that the effects of clocking will be different in both cases too. Though the effect of such is imparted on the things mentioned above to some degree.

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The ND555 white paper gives some insight on Naim’s streamers. It seems to state that when you are streaming via the network, the data is buffered by the streamer (can be quite significant buffering) and is controlled only by the streamers master clock. If you connect via a digital input, so something like a CD player, then the streamer is no longer the master clock and has to employ different techniques to de-jitter that signal.

I guess the next link depends on your views on the impact of working the digital processing harder. CD over SPDIF is effectively sending uncompressed PCM to the streamer which it does not have to convert or uncompress before sending to the DAC, it just gets upsampled to one of two frequencies.

If you use FLAC or other lossless compression, I guess it’s the DSP (SHARC) that has to unpack that into a straight PCM stream. So the DSP works harder.

In theory, the best format should be a WAV file streamed locally over an ethernet connection as this is the least work for the DSP, and the streamer can take full advantage of it’s internal buffer and it’s own master clock without any outside influence. The downside of WAV files is their size and lack of decent metadata… so then you get into transcoding on the fly so your streamer only sees the ‘easier’ PCM stream.

Streaming services then have a habit of applying other processing (LUFS) to the files you stream which can make it very difficult to accurately compare the same track to a locally ripped copy from a CD. Then on CDs you get into different masters etc. which is not that dissimilar to how it always was with LP’s, along with first pressings and quality of the physical vinyl used. I don’t know what streaming services use what levels of processing compared to each other. I suspect some here will know!

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