I’ve kept my CD’s… What happens if Qobuz or Tidal go bust?
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I stream from my own store of ripped or downloaded music The only online services I use are free ones like Spotify to sample new music. I decline to subscribe and rely on availability of the music I like being at the whim of a remote business, subject to catalogue changes, licensing changes and profitability, and relying upon a decent internet connections at all times I wang to play music.
My switch to streaming (locally) 10 years ago was when my CD player was on the blink, and looking for a worthy replacement came to realise that streaming was the future, so bought a streamer (Naim ND5XS) and a cheap NAS. That worked fine, and essentially matched the sound quality I was used to from my previous CD player… Before long I upgraded with a separate DAC, and learnt through doing that that the DAC was the most important part of a digital system, and that actually having separate and renderer (aka transport) was the more flexible and upgradeable approach.
In time I swapped my NAS and the ND5XS I was still using for rendering for a unit combining music store and renderer, feeding direct to my DAC, no longer streaming any music over a network, (freeing me from any of the debates over effect of network components).
I was fortunate in that prior to my change to streaming I had already ripped my LPs to make into CDs, and had kept all the ripped files on hard disk, thus had an existing library. I then said about ripping all my CDs. (Word of caution: if you do decide to do this, it is very important to check file metadata (tags) and make sure key data is correct and consistent. More on this can be found by a simple search of the forum, or can be offered when needed.)
Since switching to streaming (locally) I have never looked back: I have never missed playing CDs, it’s now being better quality than I had then, virtually zero storage space, never lost, and with the longest works, like opera, I don’t need to have a break to change CD (or, worse, flip multiple LPs!)
That is the position as I understand it as well however, I believe it would be more clearcut illegal if someone were to rip their CDs (or LPs), and sell the originals while keeping the file copies, and perhaps more likely to result in action in the probably unlikely event of that ever come to the attention of the relevant authorities,
You sign up with the other one, which will benefit from the extra subscribers they will get from the one that folds.
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A few years ago Stevesky posted that the way data is presented to the streamer can affect sound quality. Maybe Melco supplies the data in a different manner to Qobuz. I know Tidal supplies data to the streamer in a different manner to Spotify.
SteveskyNaim Staff
HI @LJS,
When using Chromecast the stream is bit perfect and native upto 192kHz/24bit. The downside of Chromecast + Qobuz is that it’s not really designed to run at such high sample rates. The buffer sizes are far too small (hence prone to drop outs) and the Chromecast stack is very inefficient so uses nearly all the CPU time in the streamer. Not only is this bad for unit response times, but not also great for sound quality as the electric noise floor of the product increases as everything works harder.
I have been using Tidal on my NAD C658 and Lumin P1 streamers with no problems for many days now.
It appears to me to be a Naim Streamer problem with Tidal access and not specifically a Tidal general problem.
i agree with @MoonDrifter , in my experience with qobuz naim seem to fail if they get any unexpected response from qobuz while other manufacturers seem to carry on ignoring error/warnig codes
Which other thread?
There is an interesting article in Alpha-Audio.net with the title:
I’m done with it…most remasters just suck!
Interesting to read and maybe another reason why I often prefer my Melco sound!!
Happy days!
yep if you have a particular master you like - then needle drop it or RIP it and play it from your Melco or NAS
Just noticed that ProStudioMasters has started to include DR and LUFS info for their releases.
(Actually intended for another thread, but somewhat relevant here.)
We had a 30 hour internet outage a couple of weeks ago and I was certainly glad to have my rips on a NAS 
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