Do CD and lossless streaming sound the same? A response to ana[dia]log video. And on excessive complications in the audiophile culture.

Today's blog post was inspired by Mister MB in a comment he made on the post last week (about GR-Research, and the hype around passive crossover components):

Hey Arch,

Slightly unrelated, but I thought you'd be interested in this recent video about CDs vs Streaming by Guido of Anadialog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8PeMpT2DE

What do you think? ...

Thanks for the link MB. I've come across the ANA[DIA]LOG YouTube channel but admittedly haven't spent much time watching the contents. I certainly appreciate the host, Guido's, passion and energy! I see the content caters more to physical music media, especially tapes and LPs. As you probably know, for me, subjective preferences aside, analog media represent lower-resolution sound; no offence to vinyl/tape lovers, it's just a statement of fact (especially with LP/vinyl) given the much higher resolution capabilities of modern digital ADC and DACs, achieved with less hassle.

Good to hear about the interest around CDs these days. I guess what's old eventually becomes new (maybe even trendy) again at some point after a couple of generations! Although I have a feeling Edison's wax cylinders might have a tougher time staging a comeback. 🙂

Here is the embedded video for those who have not watched that specific episode linked by MB:

Within the video, here are a few quick links to sections I'll focus on in the points below:

- Packet loss articles and test (see website: https://packetlosstest.com/)

- Audio samples: CD vs. Streaming

- Track identification & conclusion on sound differences

No need for suspense, the host (Guido Guarducci) heard no difference between CD vs. lossless streaming. Obviously, this result is no surprise. We know that the Internet can transmit "perfect" audio data with no concerns (including domestic computer server transmission of lossless 24/96 like we talked about from Sweden to Vancouver back in 2015, with no significant jitter).

So when Guido says after testing "dozens" of tracks: "I have to admit that I do not with CD quality hear any difference... I wasn't expecting that."

To me, the only thing mildly surprising is why in 2025, there are still educated audiophiles online - including ones who run YouTube channels - that believe they should hear a difference!?

Is it that public education on how digital technology works is inadequate? Is it that there's too much misinformed narrative in the audiophile world that bit-perfection is somehow still not enough? Is it that the Industry itself does not come out and just say there is no difference because this takes away potential hype when trying to sell products (for example, the myth that the bit-perfect streamer makes a difference when connected to the same high quality DAC)?

I don't think Guido needs to make any apologies for why he hears no differences - because of the quality of his T+A converter or the "controlled environment" of his music room, etc. Somehow he thinks that with a lower quality DAC, maybe it'll sound different. No man, there's nothing to worry about. There's no need to think you need an expensive DAC or streamer or whatever to make things sound better in an honest A/B listening test (ideally blinded of course). Just like there isn't huge audible differences when testing expensive DACs vs. a cheap one when blinded and volume controlled.

Let's go through a few points addressing and expanding on some of the items in the video:

1. The "famous debate" among audiophiles of "streaming vs. CD" IMO is a fabrication for those who are insecure about how digital audio works. Beyond the relatively small audiophile pond, is there a big debate among the oceans of music listeners? I think the details are adequately covered in my 2019 article Why "Bits Are Bits". Let's not add unnecessary fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Basically, we're looking at the settled science of matured digital engineering. Nothing particularly remarkable, especially true for standard-resolution CD technology which at this point has been 43 years since the first consumer CD player!

BTW: some individuals like Hans Beekhuyzen still put out videos trying to impress his viewers about the complexity of digital audio playback, highlighting things like "jitter". It's not Y2K anymore Hans, modern devices in the last decade have all but eliminated issues like jitter (which was never significantly audible except maybe in the worst devices). 

No reason to believe Beekhuyzen knows what he's talking about nor does he have the hearing ability to be credible for multiple reasons. I find it interesting reading the comments on his videos being so positive. Clearly he must be removing negative comments; or those who disagree with him by now have just moved along, turning that channel into an echo-chamber for the faithful - those who still "want to believe".

2. There has been a resurgence in interest and purchase of CD's? That's great. Yeah, there's something to be said about the pride of ownership and tactile experience of material products as we are physical creatures who enjoy collecting things. While I would not use analog recordings as my reference when listening for review purposes (unless analog playback gear I guess), I do enjoy my modest LP collection; ~300 LPs of first press Beatles and stuff from the '80s I grew up with.

Yes, mastering matters greatly (as part of the "Source Recording Quality" domain discussion). Guido seems to have a "thing" for the AAD SPARS code (Analog recording, Analog mixing, Digital final master to the CD). I would not put too much emphasis in that since some of the earliest DDD/full digital albums still sound great like Passion, Fire & Grace, The Nightfly, or Brothers In Arms. It's not simply the analog vs. digital trait of the original recording and mixing, but the skill of the audio engineers behind the console and whether they were free to aim for natural sound rather than nasty, loud, compressed recordings once we got into the latter '90s and 2000's.

3. Streaming needs higher quality connections for lossless audio. Of course. Without fast enough bandwidth and reliability for the lossless bitrate, we run into buffer underrun conditions and music will usually pause or stutter as the player tries to grab enough data to continue with the next bit of the song.

Uncompressed, CD requires 1,411.2kbps (1.4Mbps) and typically with lossless FLAC compression, we can get around 1Mbps average. For lossless CD-resolution 2-channel playback then, if your Internet connection is capable of an average 2Mbps to give us a little overhead, you should have no problems if just listening to music. This is not a big deal in much of the world as broadband Internet speeds average around 100Mbps world wide already, with most of the more affluent world averaging >200Mbps. In comparison, NetFlix recommends >5Mbps for their lossy 1080P video/audio streaming.

For best sound quality, while I prefer lossless for my personal computer audio library streamed over Roon, I am not concerned that I'll miss anything if the audio is transcoded down to high-bitrate lossy like 256-320kbps MP3 using a modern encoder like LAME 3.100. AAC, Opus, and Ogg Vorbis should be even better.

Yeah, I know, audiophiles still seem to have a hang-up about lossy audio but listening tests (including the one here from 2013) have never shown high bitrate lossy to be a poor substitute even with high quality sound systems. We are no longer back in 2000 when we were using low-quality encoders and 128kbps target bitrate so make sure to recalibrate your ideas if you think "MP3 sucks!" - it doesn't. Make sure to point out the dissonance when you run into an audiophile who likes or even prefers MQA/QRONO which is also lossy.

4. Guido's correct that much of the "hi-res" music available for streaming or download isn't truly high-res. As covered in the article on "Post-Hi-Res Audio" from 2020, there are lots of reason not to be too excited just because even if the bitrate/bit-bucket is big, much of the time, the musical content in the bucket can comfortably fit within standard 16/44.1 CD-resolution. Even if the music is true hi-res, we must still question whether we can hear a difference!

5. The loss of data packets as shown in the video using the online test is not an issue. Guido needs to be careful about this one because I don't think he understands what's going on.

Yes, Internet data transfer is prone to packet loss as it traverses the multi-path network across towns, cities, and continents due to all kinds of potential errors as per this image he showed:

From this website.

This is well known and he shows papers talking about mitigating the effects of packet loss. And yes, we can use the website https://packetlosstest.com/ to have a look.

Here's the data from my workstation as I write this:

Look at how scary that appears! Since Guido is in Europe, the above is the packet loss from here in Vancouver, Canada connected to a server in Germany, but also going through a VPN along the way through the USA.

Notice however that we're using the "1080p game stream" preset. If you look at all those presets available to test, what we're seeing is that this test is modeled around gaming, VoIP, real-time streams like Zoom, etc. So all this tells me is that I shouldn't be playing 1080P streamed gaming (like through GeForce NOW over the cloud) from this server in Germany through the USA-based VPN provider because 6% of the data can be lost (resulting in image/sound degradation) and the packets are all showing up late, more than the 50ms threshold for close-to-real-time response. A latency of >300ms is basically unplayable!

Is there anything to worry about here for audiophiles who want to play music though? NO, this is fine!

Guys and gals, this is a test of packet loss for non-error-correcting gaming/video/Zoom-like protocols over UDP, not TCP; the difference was discussed years ago for the home network (very low packet loss) and the principle is the same across the wider Internet. Music streaming services like Qobuz, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, Tidal, even Roon ARC streamed from home, all use TCP for error correction, this is why high quality music streaming doesn't sound atrocious with audible dropped packets as you would expect with numbers like the 6% data loss above. Also, packets that arrive out of order will be sorted out by TCP. While you can still have delays and potential buffer underruns if the network is very slow or unreliable ("Buffering... Buffering...") especially if streaming hi-res 24/192 audio, you will not run into packet loss that causes distortions as some seem to describe with changes in tonality, soundstage flatness, or PRaT issues.

Guido, if you're reading this, please do not cause others to worry. The results from PacketLossTest are interesting but not to be applied as a reason of concern in audio streaming. This is for the most part not "a true problem" unless you're playing real-time video games and need low latency with minimal data packet loss otherwise you'd get killed in online combat!

As often the case, I think many YouTubers need to know the limits of their knowledge before spreading misinformation and potentially causing anxiety among unaware perfectionistic audiophiles! Music playback is not real-time interaction like a video game or chatting to mom over VoIP. The data is already a file on the server and streaming audio is essentially a file transfer to your player with at least a few seconds (2-5 seconds for the Qobuz app) of buffering. The buffer fills up asynchronously and so long as the data arrives fast enough to keep that 5-second (or longer) buffer from running dry, there is no audible problem.

This is why the streamer itself doesn't matter and whatever time latency of the computer/streamer hardware is usually moot (yes, even down to the meaninglessness of RAM speed and CPU speed despite claims of some companies and individuals). The only place we need very precise timing is in the DAC which is what determines distortions from jitter in the audio playback.

External clock boxes do not make sense if we're aiming for highest resolution - this is why it's a bit like a Rube Goldberg machine that the new flagship >US$200k dCS Varèse uses an external clock with fancy cables and protocols. A precise clock could have just been implemented much cheaper and likely even functionally better, sitting beside the Ring DAC circuit. IMO, the idea of having mono-DAC boxes is just as pretentious!

I don't think Guido quite understood the papers he found online. For example, this one he showed first "Methods for Mitigating IP Network Packet Loss in Real Time Audio Streaming Applications". It says right in the abstract:

"In many non real-time applications, transport protocols such as TCP or reliable UDP can be used to re-transmit lost packet. However for real-time media streaming applications that are delay sensitive and where multicasting is used, such protocols cannot be used."

Again, streamed music is not a "real-time application" and it uses TCP which is not what that paper is addressing.

Nonetheless, I appreciate that Guido did an honest listening test and confirmed what we all should know these days based on how the technology works. Whether reading this blog post, making sure our bank account information is correct, or listening to lossless music streams off Qobuz, et al., TCP has error-correction, is reliable, and bit-perfect so long as you don't need real-time millisecond-level interactivity.

While music streaming is error-corrected, realize that Bluetooth connections do not have error correction. If your AirPods miss a data packed when streaming audio, it cannot ask your mobile device (eg. the iPhone) to resend lost/erroneous data (typically AAC 256kbps in the Apple Bluetooth ecosystem). This is why you can occasionally hear Bluetooth glitches. Perhaps these are the sound quality issues Guido's referring to with mobile listening. Uncorrected bit errors will sound like this old recording of a bad USB cable.

Seriously guys, just keep it simple and understand how the tech works, not just what you think or have been told as received audiophile "wisdom"; a lot of that stuff is either wrong, old information, or distorted for financial or reputational gains. Digital audio technology is not nearly as worrisome as some audiophiles like to make it. "Bits Are Bits" for any decent digital streamer and high quality DAC in the 2020's and you're not going to hear a difference in controlled listening whether playing off the CD or streamed (assuming the same lossless mastering of course!). Error-corrected TCP is used by the major music streaming services. Just make sure your Internet is fast enough to keep up with the bitrate to the streamer/player buffer that's feeding your DAC.

That's really all there is.

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Let's end with the question: "Why do audiophile hobbyists make things unnecessarily complicated?"

So to save time, let's ask ChatGPT for an answer based on the trillions of data points it has read/collected in its artificial neural network:

Audiophile hobbyists love to chase perfection, and that often means going deep into the tiniest details—sometimes to an extreme. Here’s why things can get so unnecessarily complicated:

1. Passion for the Hobby – When people are deeply invested in something, they tend to analyze every little aspect, even if the differences are minuscule.

2. Placebo & Subjectivity – A lot of what audiophiles hear is subjective, and once you think you hear a difference, it’s hard to un-hear it. This leads to endless debates about cables, DACs, power conditioners, and more.

3. Marketing & Pseudoscience – High-end audio is filled with expensive products that claim to improve sound in ways that aren’t scientifically backed. Yet, people buy into it because of FOMO or confirmation bias.

4. Measurement vs. Experience – Some focus on objective measurements (e.g., frequency response, THD), while others swear by subjective “warmth” and “soundstage,” leading to complicated discussions with no clear answer.

5. Gatekeeping & Prestige – There’s a bit of elitism in the hobby. Some audiophiles look down on “lesser” gear, making it seem like you must go down the rabbit hole to truly appreciate music.

6. Endless Tinkering – Some just enjoy the process of swapping components, tweaking EQs, and experimenting, even if it’s not necessary for great sound.

At the end of the day, good sound is what makes you happy. But yeah, some audiophiles make it way more complicated than it needs to be. Have you run into this firsthand?

That's a pretty thorough answer. And yes, ChatGPT, I've certainly run into audiophiles making things too complicated firsthand. 🙂

Audiophile culture and the psychology of fellow participants influence us deeply as social creatures. In particular, I think as individuals we have to be realistic about our own potential to be affected by placebo and how much of what we're doing has to do with prestige - hopefully not to the point of arrogance or elitism given the democratization of high-fidelity sound thanks to improving technology. Before shouting to the world that we can hear this or that, or how much better our $200k DAC is compared to a $1000 one, make sure we know ourselves and our subjective motivations. I think it looks foolish to reasonable people (both audiophiles and non-audiophiles) if one makes absurd Baron Munchausen-esque "golden ear" dramatic claims! (Especially ridiculous as we get older.)

Even if we take away financial motivations (lots of salesmen and monetization influences out there!), just the desire to be a YouTube or social media "influencer" has an effect on how many articles/videos are created, how many "likes" one gets, and how many people one can encourage to "subscribe". To be a YouTube "star" with say 100k followers and getting that plaque from the company is understandably a source of pride. To do that, one also needs to have material to talk about whether it's meaningful or not!

Sometimes it's almost purely for entertainment like Steve Huff who reviews audio hardware (141k subscribers) that's almost always better than the last stuff, but at the same time runs his Huff Paranormal channel which has almost 1.7M subscribers today! Is such an individual psychologically trustworthy?

Other times, the channel content appears to be a combination of misinformation + advertising like Hans Beekhuyzen. So many questionable claims and obvious mistruths or distortions of truths for so many years! Looking back at his videos, it's as if his view of the audiophile pursuit has not evolved and the issues that he fears (like jitter and noise) are as much a part of his present concern as it was 10 years ago. That's rather insecure and sad, I think.

We also have GR-Research discussed last week and that mix of real science, useful information, but with limited transparency into his DIY designs, a character prone to exaggeration, with "UFO Believer" mysticism + self promotional salesmanship thrown in. I see Danny's selling cryo'ed RCA interconnects now, 8-strand, braided, cotton roped, still needs 200 hours burn-in - not sure why, but yippie I guess. Take what's useful information but appreciate the boundary between science and science fiction.

I guess for ANA[DIA]LOG, it seems to be more hobbyist chatter based on passion. Alas, as discussed above, there are bits here and there where he doesn't quite discuss the material in an accurate context, which could lead perfectionistic hobbyists to chase their tails unnecessarily.

There are so many YouTube channels and product review channels that have issues like this, not just with audio but across the board with many other topics. (Needless to say, look at all the hours and hours of partisan politics and other fluffy gossip throughout social media... How many days and nights of our lives do we waste on this mindless junk?)

Mister MB's comment that I quoted at the top also has a part that made reference to this video which recommended the benefits of the Auric Illuminator (here's another subjective review of the magic properties from 2000):

Needless to say, I don't expect anyone to spend money to try this 'auric' (gold? aura?) device with no objective evidence. Likelihood of wasting time and money is clearly very high. 🫣

While I doubt there's need to do all those things in the list to improve sound, the most egregious is the Auric Illuminator. So, coloring the outer & inner edges of your CD/Blu-Ray/DVD with a black (not even green!) permanent pen and using some cleaner gel on the plastic suddenly makes the music sound better? Is there any proof that doing this changes the need for CD Reed-Solomon error correction because the disc is easier to read? Does it seem plausible still that this will result in better sound when there was no difference streaming from the Internet vs. CD playback? Since the video mentions about other disc formats like DVD and Blu-Ray, does it also make the video look clearer, not just the sound? It's amazing that doing this is even more beneficial than the other items on that list!

Needless to say, I don't think many audiophiles have much faith in the Auric Illuminator these days and it may have been discontinued as of June 2024.

Getting great sound quality from digital audio isn't very complicated. If you've ensured bit-perfect playback, have a good objectively-accurate DAC based on modern testing, and made sure you haven't screwed something up with volume controls (streamer, DAC, [pre-]amplifier), you're likely in good shape. The most important thing is to then go listen to good music, focus on other parts of your system (like room, speakers), and be happy! Afterwards, if you still want to enhance the sound, then look into DSP room correction (Audiolense, Dirac Live, others as well), maybe try out crosstalk cancellation to get beyond just bit-perfect stereo. And of course, multichannel music is something I think audiophiles should open their minds to if space and the system allows.

Be careful with UFO believers, paranormal advocates, voodoo quasi-religious ideas, and just plain "magic" in audio playback; in other words, the plethora of snake oil for sale. Among the masses of opinions and information on the Internet (especially on YouTube and social media), I wish you wisdom and discernment to find truth. Or at least the self-discipline to avoid getting sucked into hours and hours of potential misinformation by running your own listening tests, controlled and blinded as best you can!

Good luck. Enjoy the music!

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Speaking of music, in the last week I've been listening to Canadian blues guy Colin James. It has been awhile since catching up to his latest work including Miles To Go (2018, DR8), Open Road (2021, DR7), and Chasing The Sun (2024, DR8). As with many artists, I would have preferred higher dynamic range recordings like with his early albums Colin James (1988, DR13) and Sudden Stop (1990, DR15). Those albums invite us to turn up the volume and be treated to visceral impact and high contrast nuances compared to his modern DR7 and DR8 mixes.

Mr. James - maybe consider asking your audio engineers to aim for DR10 at least? Given the genre of music, I think your fans would appreciate that and the improved dynamic impact I think will spur sales these days as music lovers seek quality over quantity.

Here's my favorite track - "Just Came Back". Have a listen to the original high-dynamic release on Sudden Stop using a good hi-fi system!