Streaming - how many are doing it?

[Fran]

If you had asked me 18 months ago would I ever be interested in a streaming service, I would have shook my head vigorously and said no way. Then I got the opportunity to try out a cheap bluetooth module with one of my dacs..... and I was amazed at the sound quality. In fairly short order I tried tidal, apple music, spotify and qobuz. I settled on qobuz in the end and to my amazement, I have kept using it, and indeed see myself using it more and more.

I guess most streaming is done via phones and headphones, when travelling, working etc etc. ... but my heaviest use is here in the listening room, with the full system in flight. I still love my vinyl, and continue to buy vinyl .... but I find qobuz is just brilliant for picking out what I would like to buy.

The experience made me re-evaluate some prejudices I had towards it.


How many of you use something like this for serious listening (as opposed to just playing music in the background or on the daily commute etc)?

[Diapason]

Most of my serious listening now is streaming, although my "serious" listening is a lot less serious than before. I can definitely hear a difference between Qobuz and Spotify on the systems, though, but Qobuz is enough for me these days. I play CDs only once in a blue moon, and I'm shocked at how much has changed in 10 or 12 years. In a way I listen to more music now, and that's good. But my connection to individual recordings is definitely lessened, which is a bit of a shame.

I still have a "mixed" relationship with vinyl, though, so I accept I may be an outlier.

[Adrian]

I use a Marantz ND8006 for the kitchen rig. I stream from various internet radio stations, some come in at 128Kb/sec and it’s ok. Other stations are lower. I do like Interstellar Radio, prior to that was Ocean Radio Chilled, but that seems to have gone off the net. But there is a lot of stuff on the net now.

[Sloop John B]

I’m a Roon convert since 2016.

I’ve ripped my 3000 odd CDs which probably account for 60% of my listening but streaming services (Qobuz which makes up the other 40% ) make it so easy to discover new music and go down rabbit holes. I was listening earlier today to Joni Mitchell‘s court and Spark, which was released 50 years ago and the last track on It Twisted is a cover of a vocalisation (vocalese I believe is the term) of a jazz track by Wardel Gray it was great just to find the original track and the vocal presentation by Annie Ross as well.

.sjb

[Fran]

I have to say I find it great slipping down those rabbit holes!

One thing I do notice with qobuz is that sometimes there are multiple versions of the same album - often one is hi res and the other standard resolution. On my system at least (and it might be to do with my dac) the standard resolution ones always sound better.

[JAW]

I finally bit the bullet and got a subscription to Tidal. As Fran noted with qobuz, Tidal offer various versions of the same album, remixes, Master quality, etc. I generally listen via my phone and headphones out walking or through the car stereo. At home I use a laptop with an Arcam RDac, and find streaming great when friends are over, but I'm not sure how good this combination is.
As a thread, I bought some CD's from Brutus on this forum a while ago, including a Gong cd, which has taken me down a different path of listening on Tidal into Caravan, Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt and Steve Hillage. Without using a streaming service I wouldn't have had the opportunity to listen to these artists without hunting out cd's or vinyl.
Finally, I'm hmming and aahing about buying a streamer. Cloney recommend the Bluenote as the best entry level one. Any opinions or other options?

[HiFiFan]

I got a lifetime subscription to Roon in about 2019. About the same time I Started to use Tidal and Qobuz. I imported all my CDs onto a music server and used to use the streaming services just to get a few songs here and there that I didn't have or to do a little exploration but over the years I have moved away from CDs and now predominately just use the streaming services.

I have various options set up depending on the situation.
I stream to a Devialet Mania when I want portability around the house or outside
To a pair of KEF- LSX II for casual listen
On my iPhone/HiBy when on the go and in the car
Via OpticalRendu and DAVE for serious listening

I generally stream the 'The Current' and 8Radio

[markof]

I've been streaming via qobuz since before it became respectable :-).
I'm using an Auralic Aries mini as the streamer/server with it's Lightning DS app.
I tried Roon for a year and while I liked the recommendation system I eventually quit as I did not like the value and found the SQ to be a little less refined than through the DS app on my system.
I use the free on-line access to a range of music magazines (gramophone, BBC music, Jazzwise) from the public library system and a variety of online forums for music recommendations now.

Mark

[Brutus1968]

I don't have a proper streamer and I still collect vinyls and CDs, but as others I use a PC to listen to either files on an external HD or music on the internet (mainly Spotify and Bandcamp) connecting via usb to a Dspeaker antinode or via bluetooth to a Topping. Streaming for me is good for listening to music I don't want to invest money into, or for trying and discovering new music. But when I find a good album I will buy the product in some kind of format: I still believe that the old way music collection is like our autobiography and it is good from time to time to read a few pages before going to bed ;-)

Best

[Georgi]

Streaming is 80% of my listening habit, Started around 2015 with Spotify, then Tidal and for the last two years Qobuz, as in my opinion is the best sound from all.
Good streamer is a must these days.
I do use Bluesound Node 2i with LPS and the sound is pretty good, but for my critical listening I do use MacMini with LPS.