If Streaming is the FUTURE of Music why is Vinyl in the ascendency again.
When I sit down to indulge myself in the full LISTENING experience, it always has to be Vinyl.
It’s been said a lot, but it is about the process AND the medium.
It’s tactile, contains notes and pictures and often lyric sheets.
You learn about the musicians and the production.
Streaming gives me none of this🤷🏻♂️
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I don’t stream, just my personal preference - but a recent editorial in HiFi+ suggested that when the computer games companies decide to no longer use discs the mechanisms are unlikely to continue being made.
I’d prefer it to be part of the future, as well as the other ways of listening to the music
I love my vinyl records and the experience of purchasing and unwrapping a vinyl record, placing it on the turntable. whilst reading the cover and any accompanying notes. Sadly, I find with new pressings I may get to track three for example and there will be a horrendous noise! Sometimes no visible sign of a problem. My record supplier has been excellent at replacing. Example. Billie Holiday Lady In Satin took four copies before I found one without the pressing problem!
I will still purchase vinyl but streaming will be my main source from now on.
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I fully understand the new vinyl dilemma and often find myself trawling Discogs and EBay for high quality preowned product when buying in back catalogues.
Unfortunately this is often a problem with NEW music too, so back they frequently go until a decent press is received.
Still, it’s a real challenge for me personally to throw in the towel and invest in a quality streamer and Digital Subscription(s). I’m sure I will capitulate eventually🤷🏻♂️
We’re rather stuck with CDs for now as we can’t really justify the funds needed for an ND555…
Same here, only I donated my Linn CD player to my brother-in-law along with my Roksan Amp’s and Linn Keilidh speakers.
Currently ‘Ripping’ my CD’s to a LaCie 4TB drive via my Mac and then they’ll be going to the same new home.
The problem then becomes, what do I stream them through as I too can’t afford an ND555 or for that matter an ND5 XS2…
But, the point of the thread is, do I even need too?
I guess it is rhetorical as the future is already here, but then, why is Vinyl making such a strong resurgence?
I fully recognise the circular nature of this argument…
Simple: fashion. Not to die-hard vinyl lovers, to whom it is simply a welcome renewed availability, but for the mass market, from Teens upwards, I think that is largely the reason. My oldest son, now in his thirties, wants it because it is “cool” and looks good, and his friends and work colleagues seem to view in a similar way.
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Of course!
Being resolutely unfashionable myself, this particular reason had never even occurred to me…
My experience is very different. Using Roon gives me all that and more. It gives me lots of info if it’s available on the artists. It provides links for albums and artists so that I can see and listen instantly to other pieces the musicians have been involved in, same for production and engineers. I have my turntable still but really hardly ever touch it. I don’t miss it streaming gives me so much more.
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Vinyl is a very self absorbed medium. Perhaps a motivation for the younger fashionistas and why the inveterate absolutely deny any other medium.
What with obsessive attention over every aspect. Be it searching, shipping, unwrapping, collecting, sniffing, storing. Before it hits the platter. Then - you all know. 
Where’as Streaming could be a more social engaging medium. Passing a device around the party, each selecting a favourite song. Creating a playlist that’s a memory of an occasion.
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The problem I’ve got with streaming is that it doesn’t get near my Xerxes or CDS3 for sound quality.
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What are you using to stream?
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I’m not sure this adds up.
Vinyl is in the ascendancy to the extent sales are on the up and record shops likely die if they’ve no physical product to move. The sales aren’t actually that great in comparison to streams or indeed CD. CD is also in the ascendancy and, let’s not kid ourselves here, if records shops saw CD continue that resurgence we’d see the latter dominate in store once again without a beat being missed. There’s lots written about how vinyl has been resurrected showing that quality wins out but that’s simply not true. There are too many other things to factor in.
For me the full listening experience is just that. Listening and nothing else. If I’m reading or exploring or whatever then I’m not fully engaged.
I accept the pleasure in liner notes and lyric sheets but that’s not sustainable for vinyl in the way it was for CD and indeed it wasn’t sustainable for vinyl first time around. There are many great artefacts but the majority of vinyl was in a plain white sleeve for good reason. It’s not an especially green product either and that reaction is just beginning to come to the fore.
When I listened to vinyl I would read lyrics etc. as part of the first listen experience but rarely during the actual listening. Maybe to just check a lyric. Vinyl enthusiasts make much of all this but it’s a stretch to describe it as a part of the 50th listen to an album in my view.
Plenty of steaming gives you exactly this. Roon has the capacity to do far more and Innuos Sense is taking steps down a similar road.
Ultimately threads like this are about trying to justify to ourselves the roads we’ve taken. I see no need. We can all enjoy what we have without claiming false negatives for the things we don’t have or have yet to try. The responses are of the same ilk. Streaming is brilliant because… but streaming is not as good as x because…”. It’s both wrong - of course some streaming set ups are superior to vinyl just as some CD set ups are but… vice verse - and pointless. Enjoy what you have. Stay where you are or move on. Only your musical enjoyment matters.
I moved from vinyl to CD for space, sound and (especially) available catalogue reasons. Eventually my CD set up far outstripped my vinyl set up. I moved from CD to streaming only when I finally found a streamer which sounded better than my CDP and also for space reasons. Some extra catalogue has been a bonus. Much of what those who tried to push me to stream for years pushed as positives have turned out to be no such thing. Others will have entirely different experiences and beliefs. None of us are wrong.
With all due respect it’s noticeably only those with vinyl who start these threads. Those with CD or steaming generally feel no need. A whole thesis could emerge there :).
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The problem I’ve got with streaming (from my own locally stored music) is that it sounds so much better than anything else I’ve heard, especially vinyl, that I don’t understand anyone’s preference for vinyl from the sound quality angle - though I do miss its tactility and the “magic” of first putting on a new LP to play, while looking at the sleeve notes and images, the click as the stylus locks in the groove, with the anticipatory start of the background noise (and with some albums a “pre-echo” to prepare fore the start.
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Been at enough A/B dems in shops and at home to say that the difference between formats nowadays is a sliver and ultimately a personal preference. You like what you like but claims that it’s inherently superior lack much in credibility.
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I’ve only got a Qb which I use for listening to stuff before committing to CD or vinyl. BUT I’ve heard everything up to the ND555 and it’s never got near what my CDS3 does for involvement, fluency, richness of tone, and my CDS3 is outperformed by my Xerxes. And I’m mid-range in the Naim hierarchy.
Now I’ll accept that I haven’t heard a good stream from a local file on my system and for playing specific pieces of music I recognise the flexibility. However consider this, folks that have replaced their CD555 with a ND555 reckon that it can take up to 11 months to perform to its full potential, really! How did they validate that? Listen to the same piece of music every day and make copious notes?! And then there was all manner of evaluating switches and buying expensive Melco servers although some claim any old NAS will do. Whereas with the CD555 or CDS3, yes there’s a few weeks run in, but out the box put on Beethoven V conducted by Kleiber and your breath is taken away. Stunning.
Now I’m not saying never but so far I’m not persuaded.
Regards,
Lindsay
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If you’re not persuaded by a ND555 then that’s OK. 
My LP12 is often more engaging than my nDAC/XPS DR so I know where you are coming from
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Streaming is great, cd is great and vinyl is great. I use streaming because is practical, cd because I like own my music and also purchase some high res files. Unfortunately I do not own a record player, for sure it will sound great, opted to do the investment of the record player on a better amp instead.
People fight about their preference on format, and the format is not that important to me, commodity and having a sound that is good for me is what is important.
So love the versatility of streaming in roon and acess my ripped cd’s in the same way, one software for all my music. The CD’s sound great but I do not use it that much these days, and vinyl should be magical but the investment on another format and space needed is not for me at this time, maybe someday I will jump to it.
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I normally “never say never”, however I can comfortably say that I will NEVER go back to vinyl.
Streaming Hi-Res music on Qobuz through my dCS DAC and clock source is an absolute joy.
Sound quality is fantastic. I can control it on my iPad with no crackles/pops, no fannying on with sleeves and no getting up after 20 minutes to change the record over. I can then use the iPad to find out all about the band/album/lyrics etc. if I so wish. What’s not to like?! 
Each to their own of course, just enjoy the music 
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