There’s really no reason to bother with 32 bit especially if its floating point, to my knowledge there really aren’t many decent adc which can record at 32 bit, and the main reason you’d use 32 bit floating point (or higher) is in the production side of things when applying dsp or something as it gives extra headroom without having to truncate, you can go over 0db making clipping and worrying about levels less of a concern. That being said though, there’s no reason to keep it as a 32 bit file for playback as you can basically knock it down to 24b without any loss in quality (unlike going from 24b to 16b where there is noticable quality loss from dithering)
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So I just had a little “wtf” moment just last night…
I recently upgraded to an aries g2 (modded) and there was this very weird treble anomaly/harshness I was hearing that made timbre sound off and unpleasant. I thought it was maybe warm-up time but it was still there after 3 days, and it started to get on my nerves. I was thinking why something like this was happening. Turns out it was the damn USB cable I used to connect my ext drive for local file playback. Previously I had the basic supra then changed it to an excalibur, which is generally the brighter of the two. Long story short, now I have a callisto USB connected to it. 
(And, yes, it fixed the problem and also improved the experience)
Ok, end of story.
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After having used YouTube Music in the gym recently, I have discovered the joy of discovering new music through streaming.
I want to invest in this a little more. I’m looking at Qobuz and Tidal. Does anyone have any recent experience of either? I’m used to local flac and wav files; has anyone perceived a difference between these services and local files of late?
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Ive always heard differences in streaming vs local files on the device.
Depending on the use case, level of equipment, personal care vs convenience, then it may not matter to you.
If youre just exercising or doing work and want some tunes then i wouldnt go too deep on it.
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As many here in the forum, I"m an Roon/Qobuz user. Had Tidal for several years, but with all the weird MQA stuff, as well they didnt pay the musicians well, I quickly moved to Qobuz.
Waited some time to move to Roon lifetime license, but once you have more than two roon bridges, you will love it.
Now Qobuz in my opionion has now the best and largest HiRes Collection, at least for my genres I’m listening. Also love to have possibilty to purchase albums/songs from within Qobuz.
Still I use DSD from nativedsd which can sound sometimes way better, but as already sad someone before: it’s all a matter how you climb up the DAC/Streaming-rabbit hole 
Spotify premium I use for podcasts and soundcloud to get some club/dj-tracks.
For music discovery, I think using YouTube and Spotify is nice for music discovery, especially if you want to get a radio kind of thing going. Tidal is good for hi-res and new music discovery (my co worker love Tidal for discovering new Jazz music). I personally really like how music sound on Qobuz, so that is the streaming services I really like to use. I like Qobuz UI on both the mobile app version (I have Apple) and web browser version more than the other services. The other streaming services seemed more “quiet” to me while Qobuz sounds louder. The only downside is the Qobuz recommendation and radio ain’t too great compare to the other streaming services.
When I work out, I just use whatever playlist I made either on Spotify or Qobuz that fits the mood. I only listen to music during cardio workouts though. Weight lifting, I like to hear myself breathe.
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I am using Qobuz and thoroughly enjoy it as a stream offering and also a source where I buy contoent to download - though that is much less these days than the past. At home I use it in conjunction with my roon server and on the go I stream it natively to my devices.
The price of the subscription even broken down monthy is less than buying one typical hi res album a month and for that same price I have access to literally thousands of albums and I can even download those to a device to use offline if desired. So yes, I think streaming is 100% worth it.
The quality I think is what you were primarily asking about and again, I’ve found the quality to be fantastic. Obviously there are things to keep in mind such as network bandwidth & availability but if you’re already able to stream Netflix, Apple TV or some other similiar service then streaming music is no propblem, it is much less demanding.
These are just my thoughts really quick and of coarse based on my experinces and tolerances.
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I left Qobuz for Tidal since I couldn’t find some albums I was looking for with the former and the lack of a Connect option to mainstream gear like my home theater annoyed me.
I only switched after they moved to standard loseless content and ditched MQA.
I use it through Roon when using my 2ch and native apps on Mac and iPhone when possible.
I did not notice a change in performance comparing similar albums and specific releases
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80% of my Listening via streams is ROON w/ both Quboz and Tidal subscriptions.
It’s a bit pricey but having access to both services along w/ the ability of the ROON AI to find the patterns in my listening enjoyment and then seamlessly feed me tracks that basically flow with my mood has introduced me to more variety of music and artists that I admittedly would ever have stumbled upon on my own and this single feature has made it worth my while the past few years.
At roughly $400 yearly the ability to have this much variety constantly is worthwhile to me because i genuinely do NOT know music, i have NO IDEA who anyone is and am basically wasting money if i try to purchase music blindly. Thus i have maximum access to massive variety and all of this by software which does a better job of selecting music i actually enjoy better than i could have ever possibly done myself.
I also enjoy foreign music and again ROON having access to both Tidal And Quboz offers me such a massive selection that i’m almost never stressed in finding music to match my listening mood.
As far as quality goes, we can sit here and nit pick all the software to death, yes better quality recordings many times bring out the strengths in my system better than others and the older the music, often times the quality sometimes gets so bad that i have difficulty enjoying more than a few tracks from very old albums. These are all points for you to eventually consider based on your listening and musical preferences but unless you go into high quality media such as reel to reel tapes and particularly well known good quality vinyl pressings or SACD there is much quality to have from the streaming services. Personally if i was forced to pick between Tidal and Quboz i would keep Quboz just out of personal preference not necessarily because Tidal quality has done me dirty at any point. 
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Using Tidal having tried a few out over a couple of years and I think I will stick with it. I like discovery algorithms and I can find almost all of the obscure things I throw at it.
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Qobuz always has sounded better to me than Tidal – that’s why I’m a subscriber. To be fair, my previous comparisons came when Tidal was infested by MQA, which it wisely has dropped.
Happy Qobuz subscriber here.
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I have gone with Qobuz. I still may trial Tidal, but I’m 24 hrs in and don’t think that’ll be necessary. Good library, good algorithm (so far), and good sound quality. Software is easy to install and use. I have no complaints!
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Interesting message I got today from Qobuz. Not something I’ve come across before but I guess it’s as good an argument as any as to why local is a sound choice.
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It’s common to all streaming platforms, the Legal agreements have expiration dates, and if they can’t renegotiate, the stuff gets pulled, sometimes that’s temporary, some other times not.
I had a movie I “purchased” from Amazon get deleted because of the same issue, they did at least reimburse me for it, since those you technically can’t download those.
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I also noticed in my favorites on Qobuz that certain albums were crossed out with the message no longer available. Thankfully not albums I’m too sad about. But I do subscribe to a streaming platform in a degree to have it all, but apparently isnt so.
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Not to resurrect a dead topic, but I noticed something interesting over the past few days in regards to local files vs streaming.
I was using my KSC75s to listen to some albums and just out of curiosity tried comparing some different sources.
Some of the stuff I was listening to, if it matters:
The Avalanches - We Will Always Love You
Imminence - Turn The Light On
Pan Sonic - Kesto
I have these albums in flac on my Cowon Plenue D (which is somehow still holding onto life), and I tried comparing just using my headphones directly plugged into the DAP to listen, and then I would compare playing through my phone on Spotify downloads format as the source, through my ifi Micro iDSD Black Label.
What I noticed that I thought was very interesting was despite the ifi having far more driving power and just improving what the Koss were capable of overall, the simple DAP with very little power managed to sound “better” to my ears. By that, I mean that the stage felt wider, things just sounded right, and there was a bit more nuance and detail in each song. The tracks came to life a bit more, so to speak. On the ifi I think the overall sound signature and impact of everything was more fun, but I personally enjoyed the DAP more for the way I was picking up on little details that I just was not hearing in the spotify download.
Is this just a placebo effect? I would imagine it is entirely possible my brain is just tricking me into thinking the flac files through a much less powerful source sound better because they are hi-res. But I really do not think I am imagining it. Does anyone else have a similar experience using streaming apps versus local lossless files, even when the chain is not as good?
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@Soren Interesting! I look forward to hearing what others say as well.
PS I often keep going back to my KSC75 too. (on headband w. Yaxis) as
they have the most natural FR and timbre to my ears. Go figure. 
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Cowons are very good DAPs no matter the price, but a few things going on here.
- Local flac vs spotify which i believe is still lossy (did they ever get that higher tier going?)
- Phones are going to be decently not great sources or players, no matter what you put behind it. It may improve with something like USB Audio Player
- The cowon has all its parts developed to match itself, same with synergies and the chain as a whole.
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I can only say I’ve experienced the most MINIMAL if any of improvements when comparing like for like album versions of the same local FLAC vs. streamed from Qobuz.
I’m a big local file guy but that’s primarily because of the control it gives me. Control in the metadata but also knowing that I’ll never lose access to it. I’ve had many many instances of streamed content going bye-bye because of access rights negotiations and or simply offering a different or remastered version which may not be as good at an original CD rip often times.
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With my Aurender server there’s a noticeable improvement when you move from using Roon to streaming Tidal through the Aurender Conductor software and then again when you move to local flac files from the server itself, even though they are all the same album
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