# Local vs Qobuz/Tidal **URL:** \ **Category:** Streaming Audio\ **Created:** [January 5, 2026, 10:08am UTC](https://community.naimaudio.com/t/local-vs-qobuz-tidal/43136 "2026-01-05T10:08:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 49
**Author:** ![mikehughescq](https://community.naimaudio.com/user_avatar/community.naimaudio.com/mikehughescq/32/75241_2.png) [@mikehughescq](https://community.naimaudio.com/u/mikehughescq)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 11:45am UTC](https://community.naimaudio.com/t/local-vs-qobuz-tidal/43136/49 "2026-01-07T11:45:38Z")
Over the years you sooner or later come across a Paul McGowan video on “something” audio related. Respect for the products he produces but for the videos? No respect at all. They are the sound of a middle aged bloke tilting very badly and so obviously inconsistently at windmills. Are we not embarrassed as a group to be discussing a 5 minute video in which a bloke **simultaneously** admits that he has no idea at all what Qobuz and Tidal do with their data when storing and streaming but is “absolutely certain” they in part compress to save money on storage and compress to save money on streaming. He then asks for the comments of others because he “knows nothing” but asks that people confine **their** comments to the factual. Seriously? That’s worth discussing as though it ought to be taken seriously? I’m thinking not. Let’s be clear, both services offer very compressed MP3 streams and downloads. Both **also** offer very high res FLAC. In order to do the latter they charge more for it. One would imagine that as they’re both still here - despite the likes of Spotify, Apple and Amazon being in the space - because their margins allow them to be. The uniqueness of their offer is the often high res nature of it. I doubt we’re going to hear of either trying to save money by no longer offering that. In other words, there is no world in which they’re compressing data to save money on storage. They’re using FLAC because it enables lossless compression. They’re using FLAC because of how it works with meta data and using FLAC because it’s an efficient way to stream. Demand for wav streams long ago fell off a cliff. Lots of reasons for that but if you’re a consumer are you really going to want to stream the file which could be up to 70% bigger, isn’t definitely better and is rubbish with meta data… That’s the politest way I can currently think of saying one should engage one’s own brain, do some basic research and thinking for oneself and not listen to people who plainly have no idea of what they speak and can’t even speak about it logically or consistently. The actual answer he should have given was that: 1 - the biggest single determinant is that the master of a stream is likely not the same master use for your locally ripped CD. It may not even be the same master you were listening to last week. 2 - there are now so many system variables with streaming that it cannot possibly be the case that one can assert “local sounds better because…”. Anyone who tells you otherwise is indulging their own fantasy that they have discovered a magic solution no-one else knows about. That seems likely, doesn’t it. 3 - local and streaming can sound different. Some will say one sounds “better” but that’s meaningless. They just mean “more agreeable to them.” Have some fun seeing if there is some variable you can tweak to get to the point you enjoy both but if not then just accept that it is what it is in the context of your system, your network, your home and your ears. Over the years I’ve listened at home to local v streaming on various devices. FWIW, and I’m not sure it’s worth much… On a loaned Devialet, the noise levels were extraordinarily low. It made both sources sound a little unreal. I could not tell which was which. On my Naim system the noise levels were much higher but streaming sounded great. Again, I could not tell which was which. On an Enleum AMP -23R I found that the quality of streaming, using the same DAC and streamer as with the Naim, went up hugely. Suddenly I could tell the difference. If anything, streaming was better. With the Feliks Arioso 300B I am back to being unable to tell the difference. Streaming is noticeably louder than local but not troublingly so. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.naimaudio.com/t/local-vs-qobuz-tidal/43136)._