![]() ![]() My main digital music playback system is now a Raspberry Pi 4 running Volumio with a Behringer UMC204HD USB DAC. My music collection has been a mixture of CD's, CD's ripped to Flac, CD's ripped to AAC, older "acquired" MP3 rips, and Spotify, and after moving country once and house twice since then I no longer even own a CD player, despite keeping my CD's for possible future ripping to FLAC. Of the three I would rate AAC as the best with Ogg Vorbis considerably worse and MP3 marginally worse than Ogg Vorbis. Personally, I don't like the sound signature of Ogg Vorbis. Some of you may know that Spotify is alone in using Ogg Vorbis with other services using either MP3 or AAC. I figured that anything I really liked I would buy the CD's for, but I never did! Then a number of years after that I first tried Spotify, lured in by the low monthly cost and more or less unlimited access to browse and instantly play nearly any music and got hooked on the easy discovery of new music. Then when iTunes switched from 128kbit DRM AAC to 256kbit non-DRM AAC I got a bit lazy and started buying albums from iTunes knowing full well that they didn't sound quite as good as an actual CD.but they sounded "close enough" for most music, and could still sound pretty good on a good system, and convenience was the driving factor. For many years I used to "sample" music online and anything I liked enough I bought on Redbook CD. Like many of you I build and tweak speakers and take sound quality very seriously. I was interested to hear from anyone who has used Tidal or Qobuz on a high quality system (eg not earbuds, car etc) and what they thought of the sound quality, music catalogue etc.įirst a confession. The easiest error to make in spending $$'s on audio is fixing the wrong problem.I wasn't quite sure if this should go in Digital source or PC based so I'll put it here. I suggest you read this TAS review of the NAD C658 you have, paying particular attention to Its important to understand the coloration's of your gear. Followed by SuperĪudio CD which was an even bigger belly flop. Microsoft bought the patent rights then let it languish. ![]() Required special gear and and proprietary decoder chip (Pacific Microsonics). 20 bit resolution circa 2000 before computer audio "was a thing" Died because it Just think of them as a first step towards hi res in CD format. Probably due to higher streaming services? It seems they came out several years ago, and it did not take off, so they are hard to come by.īased on a quick search, these HD CD's are not very popular. It seems the Rotel HDCD player is also continued. ![]() Marantz HD-CD1 Single-disc CD player at Crutchfield It appears this HDCD player is discontinued. In checking out Amazon and several other sites, it appears there are not many albums on HDCD. Very interesting, I just learned something new. I checked on Japanese artist Superfly on Qobuz and hse is CD quality only. In doing more searches, Susanna Hoffs, Mary Chapin Carpenter, some James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and jazz group Four play have many albums that are just CD Quality. I know some dont like MQA practices but for the most part I prefer Tidal except for the Donald Fagen song. I know converters and it sounds like Qobuz are using Mytek converters which have a very open detailed sound but slightly edgy on the top end. Tidal is slightly more easy on your ears. I hear that same crystal slightly hard edge on Qobuz that I heard on A rock and a hard place. The Eagles Hotel California from Hell Freezes over. Tidal sounds better.though very similar, it just does not have that edge.ĥ. The CD is closer to Qobuz which sounds better than Tidal.Ĥ. ![]() There was a slight edge on the snare drum on Qobuz.ģ. I found some songs sound better than Tidal, Tidal sounding better Qobuz and some sound too similar to say which one is better.ġ. I tried Qobuz going on my NAD preamp and Focal Aria speakers. ![]()
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