I have just discovered that the Sound Quality of playlists created on my Uniti Core is substantially inferior to playing the same tracks directly from the original albums sourced from ripped CD’s. The sound is etched and very sibilant to the point of being unlistenable on high energy pop/rock.
I’m perplexed by this and wondering if anyone else has experienced this or if anyone can offer an explanation as to why this might be? I’d always assumed that the tracks on playlists were simply sourced real-time from the ripped library, but clearly not.
This has caused me a troubled week in trying to audition new speakers (Wilson SabrinaX) at home, finding them sibilant and trying to find solutions to the point of changing the resistors to try to cure the issue. I realised only today that I’ve been playing predominantly from ‘demo’ playlists, especially for modern music….
Could you please expand on what you mean by created on the Core? I thought playlists on a music store were simply pointers to the files on the store, thise being from whatever source you had separately got them from, whether ripped CDs or downloaded files of whatever resolution. Your description suggests you’ve done something otherwise?
Yes, me too and is exactly how I originally created the playlists, but somehow after being assembled in a playlist they now sound different to the original tracks. Why this could be is what I’m trying to discover.
For clarity: All the music on my Core is originally sourced from CD’s ripped by the Core.
I hear this as well. I use playlists for background listening and variety.
In my experience the “cleanest” rendition of an album is when I type the specific name of it in search. I use “Albums”, “Artists” and “Favorites” for ideas. The least best so far is playing from my lists. YMMV.
I can’t fathom any reason for why music could sound different according to how music is selected, if it is playing the same files from the same store through the same network or cable to the same streamer and DAC.
Is there any possibility that a different files have been added to the Core, perhaps the app assigning a playlist pulling them from somewhere online and saving, or actually streaming online rather than playing locally? Latter seems a distinct possibility, which absolutely could explain differences in sound. I’ve heard of people using Roon not knowing whether they’re playing a local version or online file.
Not only do I not have a Core, but I’ve never used a playlist (I don’t see any point in them at all), do I can’t try myself.
Just guessing - could there be some on the fly data conversion going on - bringing the resolution on all tracks down to that of the lowest quality track in the playlist? I’m thinking of something like the “flow” feature I used in LMS to get gapless playback in ChromeCast. It only works if all tracks have the same resolution.
Please confirm re this question I asked yesterday: Is there any possibility that a different files have been added to the Core, perhaps the app assigning a playlist pulling them from somewhere online and saving, or actually streaming online rather than playing locally? Latter seems a distinct possibility, which absolutely could explain differences in sound. I’ve heard of people using Roon not knowing whether they’re playing a local version or online file.
No streaming services are used on the streamer and no Roon either. Nothing but ripped CD’s and about a dozen hi-res downloads, none of which are used in any of the playlists. All the playlists were assembled track by track by me. Nothing imported or compiled by any other source.