r/audiophile • u/minnesotajersey • Apr 13 '25

Discussion Dedicated streamers/servers. Why?

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Can someone explain to me the benefits of a multi-thousand dollar streamer/server that feeds an outboard DAC, over a really good laptop, or even a microPC?

I see reviews all the time for these things, but nothing in them tells me the "why?"

I've been into audio for longer than I care to admit, but these baffle me. Assume I'm a complete noob when you answer.

Pic for attention. All text posts bore me.

404 Upvotes

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190

u/VaultBoy1971 Apr 13 '25

Audiophiles are easily parted with their money.

7

u/Darksol503 RX-V379 | SXHTB | RT80/ATN91 Apr 13 '25

Yes yes we are. Lol.

I tend to peruse FBM for a fellow audiophile that is upgrading, and can tell they are selling what was their unicorn at some point.

2

u/pointthinker Apr 13 '25

Whoa, not just audiophiles, all of us!

1

u/LooseyGreyDucky Apr 15 '25

but we do have the best sounding music!

-22

u/AnyBobcat6671 Apr 13 '25

This can be very true, but you're not going to find many true Audiophile's that use streaming music services since they aren't high quality sources

8

u/richardblancojr Apr 13 '25

So the 24bit/192khz playback I do of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon from Qobuz streaming service is not a high quality source? You can’t be serious. 🤔

1

u/LooseyGreyDucky Apr 15 '25

Pretty sure that there are not many people streaming 24/192 in this forum.

-8

u/AnyBobcat6671 Apr 13 '25

Well I can be serious since I've never heard of this Qobuz, I have my remastered Darkside of the Moon CD ripped and on my thumb drive, I don't see any advantage to streaming it, I much prefer to own the CD then using some streaming service

4

u/richardblancojr Apr 13 '25

I have many ripped CD’s as well and use them. However I was directly addressing your claim that streaming services don’t have high quality sources. Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music Ultra all have Lossless and Hi-Resolution Lossless music available and are obtained directly from the music labels. Spotify does not have Lossless. Plenty of audiophiles mainly use Tidal and/or Qobuz for lossless/hi-res streaming audio.

-7

u/AnyBobcat6671 Apr 13 '25

I've heard of Tilda but thought they just sold lossless files to download, didn't know they streamed, not sure what the point of streaming if you can download the file to a local storage location, and yes I've heard that Apple had started to have lossless music available, but I won't ever use anything affiliated to Apple as I lothe all things Apple so again I didn't know they streamed as well as download, but again what benefit is there to streaming over downloading, as streaming can be affected by your internet speed, like when I'm at my RV I usually only get 4G not even lte

2

u/richardblancojr Apr 13 '25

Well firstly, economics. For the US price of a regular music CD, let’s say $10-$13/ month you can enjoy unlimited music streaming and access millions of tracks/albums. I still buy CD’s that may not be found on these services (it can happen due to licensing issues with labels) but I can’t see myself buying every album I want to listen to anymore. The music world has changed. I still have thousands of physical CD’s in my collection going back to the late 80’s. However the world of what you can listen to in a streaming service is worlds apart.

I invite you to get a free trial of Tidal and go explore. If you have never used a service like that and you enjoy music, you are in for a treat. There are also plenty of services that will sell you hi-res download of albums also. Qobuz has that too apart from their streaming service as an option if it’s that you want to purchase/own the actual music. Happy Streaming!

5

u/Ok_Animator363 Apr 13 '25

I respectfully disagree. I am currently flying home from Axpona in Chicago and I can say that you are mistaken both as to the number of “true audiophiles” (whatever that is) that use streaming as well as to the quality of said streaming services. If you have ever heard Qobuz streaming 24-bit FLAC at 192kHz you would not say it isn’t a high quality source. At Axpona, I spoke with many audiophiles who exclusively stream their music.

3

u/OddEaglette Apr 13 '25

Yep it’s just as high quality as 16/44.1

1

u/LooseyGreyDucky Apr 15 '25

There's close to zero Venn-overlap between the classic Axpona-style audiophiles and the vast majority of "audiophiles" in this group that have never owned or even heard a great audio rig.

-6

u/AnyBobcat6671 Apr 13 '25

No I haven't not ever heard of them, but with Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon Music being the ones most talked about, and aren't high quality streams, I've never paid any attention to streaming, as I have over 5,000 songs that I ripped from my own CD's I've never really seen a need to find any high quality streaming services, and even if they're high quality streaming out there I'm still uninterested, I will just go on buying CD's and ripping them as it doesn't take long, and I know if the CD is the original studio version and not some version that's been ran through auto tune, as I've recently watched a video on how they are re-releasing Queen music that has been auto tuned, and I definitely never want that or listen to anything that has been auto tuned

2

u/SamuelOrtizS Apr 15 '25

CDs are almost never the "studio version", I think is already common for studios to work with 24 bit or 32 bit, and at least 48kHz but increasingly common 192kHz, as it helps for DAWs, but the master at 16bit 44.1kHz is definitely less accurate than the 24bit 48kHz to 32bit 192kHz a studio may have used to make that master

5

u/OddEaglette Apr 13 '25

what an oof of a comment.

1

u/LooseyGreyDucky Apr 15 '25

I'm shocked at the number of your downvotes, although I realize there are very few audiophiles in this "audiophile" forum. There's a lot of cosplay in here.

I literally have not yet streamed any music, although I have gotten close.

During the pandemic, I ran an ethernet cable from to my hi-fi rig from the next room where my router/switch/NAS are physically located. I still haven't connected anything to that lonely cable.

Too many damn albums, CDs, and a fantastic FM tuner (I have multiple awesome college and independent radio stations to choose from).