Quality of sound is not the only reason why people like to have their own store. There is also dependability of availability, both from day to day and in perpetuity, with no susceptibility to suppliers going out of business, or changing business models, or changing catalogues, or changes of licensing agreements by record labels etc. There is availability even for people living in locations with poor or unreliable internet connections. Roon of course has nothing to do with this, just being an interface that some people prefer, and others donāt
1 Like
For me it is SQ both from the implementation and - almost never discussed for some very (to me) odd reason - mastering version of the album.
Iāve got HD versions here and different CD rips - the HD versions are not better than the well-mastered early version CD rips. I carefully seek-out and have collected and auditioned the masters that sound best to me - that is (hopefully not surprisingly) what I play.
When going online download - what version have they got and is it the best and will it be changed ahead?
There is no real answer to that - why I want my own versions as a known musical asset.
There is a lot of (for me unfounded) presumption that the latest master and highest definition version available is going to be best, so as long as that is streamed all is well.
Iām very happy for these online services to exist alongside what I have now, but since my experience is that the latest master is not better and in many cases ruined then this is why a local version is useful.
The exceptions are for music like Classical and Jazz where some quality is needed and maintained - but this is not my main type of music so local storage however cumbersome solves nicely this problem for me.
DB.
Agreed!
If itās an analogue recording from lp era, itās miles better on lp vs cd, for me. If the turntable system is enough good to match Nd555 / twin ps level. IMO and experience.
Some lp remasters sound better than original, like Mofi, Analogue Productionā¦
As for original digital recordings, I agree. They very often sound better than remasters or hirez.
But if the album is recorded in hirez, hirez sound generally better. Nowadays albums which are proposed on hirez sound generally better than the 16/44 format. For me of course.
1 Like
Your question is indeed a valid one and with the introduction of the switch in my system the differences have become smaller in soundquality, however enough reasons to have my 17 thousand plus albums stored locallyā¦
- Soundquality - the difference is almost not their anymore but I have the impression I still hear a difference between stored on my Melco and played through Qobuz.
- Completeness. I just donāt find some music which I have through Qobuz online, and even when I would again add Tidal I would have a missing part.
- Reliability of collection, quite often individual albums which have been available are being taken out at once, and you are again without that album
- Tagging and search. I have organized my collection in such a way that for me itās easy to find my music, quite often on streaming I need to search in multiple ways on streaming to find a specific album.
- Internet stability. My music network is connected with my real external internet connection through power DSL, reason being positioning in house and benefit of always playing even if I would have issues. Now this connection through power is not always stable so hence I have sometimes a connection issue temporary between the two and either my music would stop or I canāt startā¦
ā¦so starting from 1 mainly originally and 1 still being valid, many other reasons to keep it like thisā¦
1 Like
Out of interest, have you compared music that is definitely from the same mastering, the lower resolutions simply downsampled? It is not uncommon for a hi res version to be differently mastered, in which event the differences in mastering is most likely what you hear.
The 2L website has a selection of tracks prepared purely by downsampling from the highest resolution one. (Of course, you should listen blind to avoid bias, though I know that is something you donāt believe in.)
Yes , I have maybe 20 albums, recent albums, that I have downloaded in 16/44 and hirez, from the same site ( Qobuz). For 80% of them, the hirez version sound a bit fuller, more dynamic, with more open soundstage. But not night and day.
Maybe 20% of hirez version sound forceful vs the better balanced 16/44.
But do you know the 16/44 is exactly the same mastering? Just being from the same site name doesnāt tell you that, nor does the same name or release date.
I have even heard two CDs of the same album sounding very distinctly different, and the only thing different on the sleeve notes or disks was that one said made in Britain, the other made in Germany. Same release date, same everything apart from that. That experience was what first brought home to me how meaningless some comparisons can be, assigning differences to different formats when it could be undeclared different mastering. Any difference in production is may be significant, (as in my example of country of manufacture), so unless declared as one being the hi res from which the lo res has been downsampled you donāt know it. The 2L samples I mentioned are very good for assessing audible differences between resolutions because they are from high quality master recordings in the first place, And nothing but downsampling.
Edit: Sorry, I should have added: such differences could explain why sometimes hi res sounds better and vice versa - I am not suggesting it is wrong to like one or the other!
Yes - a few years ago I was shown this and have since found that nominally āidenticalā CDs of the same album released at the same year and time but pressed at different plants are completely different masters from some presumably higher-rate format original. Iād previously presumed (wrongly) that the CD format was done one āsomewhereā and the different plants got that copy and just printed them onto CD in different locations - that is not what happens most of the time it seems.
Hence there are different copies and I select after audition the one that works best and that goes into my collection. I wish there was a master list of what is best - you cannot presume the latest is best as usually it is not so. I find usually one of the early versions but typically not necessarily the very first pressing is the one that sounds best - like someone just corrected what was wrong with the first master and it is now optimum.
That was all pre-2000 masters - as more methods to ruin the mastering were introduced then things deteriorated in quality and it is hit and miss more and more.
Again - this does not seem to be the case with Classical and Jazz so much, as I think either nothing comes out or listeners peacefully protest a bit and it just does not happen. With Rock etcā¦not so much and it is compressed to death with remasters.
DB.
I always buy highres if I can, and I am on average quite satisfied about the sound quality, and sometimes very very pleased with what I hear.
For instance yesterday the new Gergiev Bruckner was quite a treatā¦
Iām thinking of buying a melco server, therefore my question:
is it possible to transfer a data from synology NAS server to melco ?
1 Like
Yes I have done it. It is effectively drag and drop from windows pc or laptop.
Ok, so basically there is no option to let those two (melco and Synology) communicate each other ?
ā¦for example like restoring a data from the backup
Yes, map synology drive in windows, enable smb sharing on melco and copy and paste on a windows pc/laptop.
1 Like
Hmm , Iām a Mac user, I presume that will be a Finder task
@Kacper all you do is open a finder winder and select the Melco drive, create a sub folder or use the āimport cdā folder thats possibly already there and then drag the whole lot over. Depends on your network speed but do it before bed and come back in the morning and it will be done. SOOOO easy. I manipulate and move stuff on my Melco daily. Its fantastic!
1 Like
Thanks for an advice! I think that would be a good option, I can ācleanā a little bit and get rid of albums which I donāt want to have anymore.
I got an opportunity to buy a pre owned model -melco n1 zh60/2 for approx ā¬3450 or I can buy a new one - Melco N100-H20B for ā¬2300 
1 Like
Go for that option. That version has the internal architecture that gives the SQ boost. I got mine SH from my Dealer when they were replacing their range with the more expensive versions - but it was a good price and did what I wanted; the price you quote is less than I paid for mine, so a reasonable deal.
ā¦also 6TB is a nice storage capacity for most people. 
DB.
1 Like
Thanks for an advice 