I finally have had it with bad sonic quality music. MP3 was a great solution 10 years ago when networks were slow and storage space was expensive. But today, bandwidth is plentiful and drives are big and cheap. And life is too short to listen to harsh, compressed crap. So how to rectify this? Well, lots of research and some experiments. And old habits will have to die hard. In no particular order:
1. no more buying *any* compressed songs (AAC or MP3). Which means no more iTunes store. Period.
2. figure out a network storage solution and rip all of my CDs into lossless format.
3. figure out the sonic path in the house and portable.
4. figure out streaming options
5. listen, listen, listen
So far so good. Tidal is proving to be a great streaming solution. You get CD-quality sound, 20 million + songs to choose from, and pretty seamless performance on laptop, phone, or iPad. $20/mo. Sold. The home stereo actually is OK – older stuff but I lucked into some obscure speakers about 8 years ago that are great, and the old receiver is doing ok. For now I have Tidal streaming via AirPlay to AppleTV then via toslink to the Cambridge receiver.
The next thing to sort out is the storage solution (an NAS like Synology or a Bluesound Vault). Then figure out if I want to get an upscale streamer/preamp but maybe not. Oh, and the sat radio trial expired on my VW. I have a credit (and we have two other cars with sat radio), but I’m not going to renew. For there my solution is to plug in the iPhone and stream iTunes radio. Way better audio quality than sat radio, lots of choices, and it streams for free on T-mobile.
Have listened to more music the past few days than probably the past month. As in sitting and just listening. Win.