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[Poll] Music: Rent or Buy? (2018)

As a basic approach - Rent or Buy your music?

  • I primarily use subscription services - Rent

    Votes: 61 27.4%

  • I still mostly purchase CDs, LPs etc. - Buy

    Votes: 162 72.6%
  • Total voters
    223
  • Poll closed .
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radamel said:
I really like Tidal Masters (MQA streaming).
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Enjoy it while you can - they will eventually run out of superior source material.

Alas, Redbook streaming sound quality is still below what I get from playing local files or CDs.
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Sounds like there is something wrong with your streaming/network setup - or are you talking about the quality of the source material?
 
Julf said:
Sounds like there is something wrong with your streaming/network setup - or are you talking about the quality of the source material?
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Nothing wrong about my setup nor the quality of the source material.

Even today I had the chance to compare Tidal Redbook Vs CD.

We used a Bluesound node 2, an Esoteric K-07 X and a Cambridge CXC.

Always using the Esoteric's DAC the best sound quality was clearly with the Esoteric also used as transport. The CXC into the Esoteric DAC was in the middle in terms of sound quality. The Bluesound into the Esoteric was clearly worse than the CXC.

The rest of the setup was a Moon 250i integrated feeding a pair of Dynaudio special 40 helped by a REL S3.

We listened to Sokolov live in Salzburg playing Chopin's prelude no 15 (opus 28) and Gershwin's Rapsody in Blue played and directed by Bernstein.

Before you ask this was not a blind test. :)
 
Streaming for me, along with buying vinyl for particular titles.
The money I used to spend on cd’s now pays for my Tidal.
 
radamel said:
Nothing wrong about my setup nor the quality of the source material.

Even today I had the chance to compare Tidal Redbook Vs CD.

We used a Bluesound node 2, an Esoteric K-07 X and a Cambridge CXC.

Always using the Esoteric's DAC the best sound quality was clearly with the Esoteric also used as transport. The CXC into the Esoteric DAC was in the middle in terms of sound quality. The Bluesound into the Esoteric was clearly worse than the CXC.

The rest of the setup was a Moon 250i integrated feeding a pair of Dynaudio special 40 helped by a REL S3.

We listened to Sokolov live in Salzburg playing Chopin's prelude no 15 (opus 28) and Gershwin's Rapsody in Blue played and directed by Bernstein.

Before you ask this was not a blind test. :)
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Do you have the means to create a bit-perfect rip of the CD? I would be interested to hear whether the CD rip with the TIDAL stream both sound the same when they are played back on the Node 2.
 
Sorry, I don't own the Bluesound and I seldom have the chance to listen to it.

But I have several bit perfect CD rips and in my setup they sound clearly better with an SSD NetBook via USB Asynchronous into a Mytek Brooklyn DAC than with Tidal with a Chromecast Audio + iFi SPDIF purifier via Spdif into the same DAC.
 
radamel said:
But I have several bit perfect CD rips and in my setup they sound clearly better with an SSD NetBook via USB Asynchronous into a Mytek Brooklyn DAC than with Tidal with a Chromecast Audio + iFi SPDIF purifier via Spdif into the same DAC.
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So maybe they are from a different master? Or maybe your setup does resampling?
 
radamel said:
Sorry, I don't own the Bluesound and I seldom have the chance to listen to it.

But I have several bit perfect CD rips and in my setup they sound clearly better with an SSD NetBook via USB Asynchronous into a Mytek Brooklyn DAC than with Tidal with a Chromecast Audio + iFi SPDIF purifier via Spdif into the same DAC.
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Any chance you could install the TIDAL app or better yet a third party app that supports both TIDAL streaming and local playback on your NetBook and compare that way, just to eliminate any other differences? Alternatively, is there a way to play the ripped CDs through the Chromecast Audio as well as the TIDAL streams?
 
The Netbook I use to play local files has no access to the internet. It has just the Windows 7 services needed to run Foobar.

But I can try with another netbook that I use to play Tidal Masters and compare how it plays local files vs Tidal redbook.
I'd use Tidal for Windows and Foobar for local files. This one isn't fanless, has no SSD and it isn't tuned for audio but does a pretty good job playing Tidal Masters.
 
I am a (dinosaur) and a firm buyer of physical media. I cant imagine a) the tactile feel of a record or, even, a compact disc b) the album cover, notes, pictures, inners c) when buying new the % which goes to the musicians and d) technology, just haven't got the will power to get to grips with it and finally e) I heard, albeit only briefly, a Naim NDX (?) fronted system and it did leave me a little bit cold.
 
MichaelC said:
I am a (dinosaur) and a firm buyer of physical media. I cant imagine a) the tactile feel of a record or, even, a compact disc b) the album cover, notes, pictures, inners c) when buying new the % which goes to the musicians and d) technology, just haven't got the will power to get to grips with it and finally e) I heard, albeit only briefly, a Naim NDX (?) fronted system and it did leave me a little bit cold.
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I certainly care about a), b) and c) too.
 
I have done an ABC comparison of Tidal vs local rip vs digital output of a cdp and they all sound the same
I used to buy shedloads .. to wit I have almost 5000 cds (all ripped these days) I now "rent" exclusively
Price for Tidal full monty here in south africa is real cheap , $9 a month .. less than a cheap bottle of wine
 
For music I really like and want to listen to repeatedly, I buy a download (Redbook or hi-res)
For music that is less important to me, or just to explore - streaming.
Streaming pays for itself, as I use it to decide that some albums aren't worth buying, when before streaming I might have taken a chance on them unheard.
 
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