Agreed with respect to Roon and the Radio mode, I quite often find myself looking for something I want to listen to manually through Roon, that album starts and ends and many hours can pass as it builds a journey out from your starting point usually making good choices along the way.
You can always step in and set it off on another trajectory if you wish as well of course!
Ironically I’ve been doing house chores today and unearthed a big pile of CD’s I’ve been listening thorough!
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No worries, all I am saying simply that online streaming offers vastly better potential than local one, albeit a minute insignificant loss in SQ (if there is any).
Potential for finding new music, undoubtedly. And of course for someone who hasn’t built a collection, far more affordable access - and indeed that may mark a reason for a slewing of preference with age. But what it lacks is reliability/dependability, both short and long term though in different ways.
Talking about the online streaming SQ from Qobuz and Tidal, what are exactly 96/24 and 192/24 (and MQA)? Are they just CD rebuilds with upsampling?
My understanding is that Qobuz work with the various publishers and encode themselves from master copies. I find I prefer the presentation from Qobuz vs Tidal which tend to be somewhat louder versions.
The higher resolution files are just versions either sourced from the publishers or encoded from a LPCM source/master.
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The question now becomes more difficult to answer since using Roon.
I now don’t concern myself where the music is coming from. Roon radio is now very good and is like Radio Paradise except you have a bit more influence on the direction by using different seed tracks.
It is interesting to see where music has come from Tidal v Qobuz as I temporarily have both. Roon radio also picks a fair proportion of hires tracks too.
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They should be the high res files derived from the original master tapes, just as you can buy as hi res downloads, except that MQA (I think only Tidal offer that at present) are lossy-compressed to reduce bandwidth in a clever way that claims not to be noticeable, but some people say they can hear (interestingly some saying the effect is beneficial, others find it negative). MQA needs appropriate software to (Naim streamers can’t, but you can decode with other software and feed to a Naim device), which takes you half way (nominally similar to CD quality), and need a compatible DAC to restore to the full high res (no Naim DACs are).
I know what they are, IB. My question is actually rather sarcastic, because I feel skeptical that all the albums listed online as 192/24 are really 192/24. Similarly, same can be said to MQA or 96/24 albums.
Sorry, I must have missed the inference!
I seem to be similar to others in that I use streaming services (especially Qobuz now it is integrated) for a lot of my listening. I do still purchase albums I like so I have a copy in the event that for whatever reason it is not available via streaming service. I also use CD/hires copies on my phone for headphone listening when away from home/travelling.
I have local music, Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify. I really would be stuck with out streaming these days and if had to make the choice I would go with streaming. It’s more convenient, has the world’s largest record shop at your fingertips. I also could not afford to buy all the music I now have available to listen to. Qobuz and Tidal both sound great and equal to local files on my system. Spotify is for on the go as it’s fa more robust mobile platform than the others and my daughter uses it.
One of the points of MQA is Provence of the source material being what it says it is. MQA though can be decoded at many different qualities from the same file dependant on your hardware.
I have both services and never heard a difference in loudness unless it’s a different master source. This includes MQA and Standard cd quality.
Me too but with Qobuz as well. They all sound as great when the original master is. I don’t go about going is that Tidal or Qobuz and nor can I tell the difference it’s a seamless experience.
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Prefer my own music
Really. That’s a solution to what? When has provenance for digital audio ever been an issue? To me, never. This seems like a B.S. justification for MQA.
Curious question… these services use distribution masters and won’t ever have been near a CD… in fact almost certainly the CD distribution master will be inferior if the main mix masters or distribution master are 24 bit and or above 44.1 kHz sample rate.
This distribution data rate of 44.1 (and its integer multiples) rate is falling out of popularity because of the non optimum alignment with video codecs as used by YouTube and others that require 48 kHz or multiples there of and the less significance of CDs and their limited data rates in music distribution.
If you upsample a CD data rate, the information rate is still as per CD irrespective of the data rate… so there is no point, and any differences heard would reflect your DAC design, and possibly arithmetic errors from non integer multiples.
However the other way, if 44.1/16 is achieved through decimation from a distribution / mix master then the information and data rate is reduced.
To the OP, my music media location is blended (what is referred to sometimes as hybrid hosted)… it exists locally where I have specific versions or releases that are not available via the cloud and in the cloud, and is accessed and played the same irrespective of physical location…
I like the idea of having my music available locally. Some albums don’t last long online.
One of my favorites pieces for solo violin is no longer available on Qobuz. Hopefully I bought the album in HiRes.
Helen Schmitt’s interpretation of Biber’s Rosary Sonatas