So been away for a few days and before I went away my system was amazing. NDX2 and SN2. Came back home and now I had lost my bottom, sounded very poor lack of detail etc, shortly followed by the Internet going down, so I re-started my Cisco and Broadband, nothing. Still sounded poor.
Got up this morning and listened to it again, hey presto, my bottom is back and sounds excellent again.
Interesting. Did a broadband test and 60Mb download is showing.
Which service(s) do you use?
I use Qobuz, I now that sound quality can dip for me in the late afternoon and early evening. I assumed this may be contention on the network, but a friend thinks that Tidal throttles the band-width as well, although the service reports 16/44.1; and so this may be a thing these services do.
There is an article by Michael Levorgna on his new Twittering Machines site where he lauds streaming and makes the contention that local files are redundant. I think there is a lot of grist to his arguements, but I still find my local files generally a tad better, and love the resilience for when the comms goes doooooooowwwwwwnnnnnn.
M
Never heard of him, had a read, and won’t bother going back to his site. He lives in a different world. Maybe one inhabited by lots of people, but nevertheless a different world.
One’s own store never suffers poor quality due to bandwidth, network traffic, etc. It is always there, without having to pay to keep it available - and without relying on the service provider to stay in business, maintain a contract with a copyright owner, not change their priorities, rename or re-sort things. So for people who want their preferred choice of music to be available, reliably and indefinitely own storage is definitely the way. (Although one’s own store may require periodic maintenance, which might include changing storage location or formats as decades pass - but no doubt easier once all in ‘electronic’ storage.)
But for disposable music or cursory music listening, online streaming certainly makes more sense than buying. Likewise checking out new things. Then there are people starting out: for them, online streaming gives access to a huge library at far less cost than quickly amassing a completion, and the question for them is how good quality donthey require, and how much do they want to be able to come back to the same music and anticipate still listening to (at least some of) the same music in many years’ time - the latter in particular may be the deciding point for buying.
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Sorry I don’t believe any streaming services throttle anything. If its a flac stream thats what you get delivered at any time in the day. Internet bandwith cant effect the SQ of these file as they don’t use adaptive bitrates in flac streaming. If your system is changing in SQ during the day then its likely some other environmental or power related issue.
Did you have it all powered of whilst you where away? If so do you normally leave it on all the time. Maybe it just took time to warm back up?
Hi IB,
He used to run Audiostream until the recent ‘reorganisation’ at Stereophile, I think he is a marmite figure.
Regarding the article referenced by Mr Underhill, to which I responded, I‘ve just seen there is another thread on that very subject (Link: Is computer audio dead)
Don’t apologise, it was a friend’s opinion. I do know that there are times when I hear a drop in quality and so switch to my local files.
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Are the streams not buffered?
Tidal and Roon, got some tracks on my NAS drive. But was playing back from Both Roon and Tidal when I noticed the audio change
B
Hi
Everything was powered up, the only thing I did was place a NEW Cinnamon Cable from NAS to my CISCO. Tracks were from Naim App and Roon
B
I’m glad the world is back as it should. If it happens again I would try your NAS files and see if they are effected, I’ll be interested in what you find.
Checked all NAS files, all OK
What it may have been, or part of the cause, is I was transfering some large video files to my NAS drive which is in the living room and I am in the study. Maybe the cause of internet/router/cisco issue.
Will play some stuff later, and see what it sounds like,but my guess is that its back to its amazing self
Thanks
Barry
Whats your secret? I’ll pass it on to my wife. 
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I use Roon and Qobuz. I’ve never had any streams fall back to lower resolution, or notice any differences in quality at different times.
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Hi all
Well its all back to normal, and sounding amazing once again. It must have been my Cisco throwing a wobble. Phew
Barry
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