Hi-Fi Alternatives: The More The Merrier

CD? Streaming? Vinyl? FM / AM Radio? Internet Radio? Lossy rips? Losless rips? Live? Which is best? Can CDs be replaced by streaming? Do real audiophiles collect vinyl? Apples, oranges, tangerines or bananas?

Radio and streaming are methods of data transport. CDs, vinyl and music files on hard drives are methods of data storage. Smart phones, CD players, streaming devices, DACs, amplifiers, loudspeakers, headphones and in-ears are ways of converting the data and delivering the sound to your ears. The streaming service and the radio station holds the storage media and the right to broadcast it. You pay them for access to that broadcast. Or put up with adverts in the case of radio. You own the CD, vinyl or music files and the equipment to transport, convert and deliver the data it holds. You get a perpetual right to listen to it. The other extreme is a live concert, where you own nothing and get a one-time right to listen to it. Streaming is somewhere between those two: you have a renewable right to access what the streaming company itself has a renewable right from the artists and record companies to make available.

A live concert is more than someone delivering sound to you. It's an event. You can see the performers. It may be a one-off, with a legendary figure on the stage. Streaming is just data delivery. The experience is how you are listening to the music: on the train, in front of your speakers, from a Sonos One as you fall asleep. Only a small part of that experience is down to the quality of the streaming service. Playing a CD is a more restricted experience than streaming, since you have to be in the room with the speakers or headphones. A part of that experience may be the higher quality of the sound from the CD transport and the DAC, than can be had from the streaming service. Vinyl is its own sound experience: literally a different sound from the CD of the same album, less dynamic range and a bunch of other compromises.

Each service has its own purpose. It's not either/or but both/and.

Live music is a win for the experience: you had to be there, and you were. Streaming gives you a replacement for radio and gets rid of the adverts, though the curation may not be as good. Streaming works in your house, your friend's house, on the train, in the car, wherever there is enough broadband or cellular. It's a definite addition to the technological mix. CD and vinyl is for when you want a specific experience of listening and the sense of ownership: you chose that CD / album, you paid for it, and you decided to keep it rather than bin it in embarrassment.

What makes sense to get depends on where you live and who you live with. Hi-fi gear takes up space and needs to be played around 60-70 dbA at point of listening - the volume of the human voice or my steel-string acoustic guitar. CDs take up space. This is fine for someone in their own house, but if you are sharing with your family or three other people in a large flat, you may want to go for streaming through your iDevice and a decent DAC into some head-fi, or noise-cancellers. How easily small feet can snag fat power cables: young children and £2,000 of Kef LS50 II's on stands are an accident waiting for an insurance company to decline. I have a small terraced house, and even speakers with only 85 db/watt-metre are way too loud with one watt going through them. Any more that 40 watts / channel is just silly. If I lived in a larger house a few yards from my neighbours, I could crank up the volume and an 80 watt / channel amp might be an idea. The WAF is a real thing: only single men can rejoice in stacks of blank boxes joined with gnarly cable, leading to a pair of speaker towers that look like some weird bird.

My core listening is CD. I already had a lot of CDs before streaming became worth having. I like certain eras of classical music that are not well-represented on Spotify, and might not be on Naxos. The same can be said for a number of EDM / House / Trance artists. Maybe if Spotify had every Bedrock and Digweed CD, I would think again. CDs are bought by browsing, which is something I will write about, that simply cannot be done online yet. While 320kps is perfectly acceptable, there's nothing quite like a CD for quality. And CDs will work even when Talk-Talk decides to not supply broadband.

Every now and then I buy a CD of some contemporary composer's music. If I picked their name and listened to something on Spotify, I would navigate away briskly. If I buy it, I have to put in some time listening to justify the expense. Kalevi Aho is never going to be on repeat, but I like what I bought of his more than I did a while ago. I would never have gone back to it if I had streamed a sample. I find, and you may differ, that the price of a CD gives me a little skin in the game of musical exploration.

I do not have an AM/FM tuner anymore, since all radio stations also stream. I have streaming because it offers what is in effect an advert-free range of radio stations: 80's, folk, jazz, classical, 60's, whatever. I can hear new releases, and I can use it on the train. (Spotify seems to cache an album, since it goes on playing even when I'm in the London Underground.) I can also play different music in different rooms over my Sonos gear. Sometimes I buy downloads from Amazon, but not the CD, and that's why I also rip my CDs (to AAC) so I have all 'my' music, that I've paid for, in one place. I have CDs because that is my preferred listening experience. Above all, it lets me play songs and artists that I used to have in my collection, still like to hear now and again, but are not part of how I listen now.

I have hi-fi speakers for the main room, Sonos Ones for the rooms where music is a background, and a Beam for the TV. I have Bose noise-cancellers I used to use in the office, Sony XM3 in-ears, and Sennheiser HD650 as head-fi. It's all about flexibility, the right technology for the circumstances. The more the merrier.

And sometime in 2023 when all this is over and I don't have to be in bed at 21:30, I will go to concerts again.

Editorial Policy

My posting has been erratic of late. If I was doing this seriously, that would matter, but I'm not, so it doesn't. Anyway, nobody reads blogs now, they listen to long rants in You Tube, interrupted by adverts (unless you use the Brave browser).

This is because I keep circling back to the same thing, and I've said my final word on it. I don't want to say any more about it.

I've been trying to find something else to talk about.

This blog has always been a diary, written knowing that other people might read it. That imposes a certain discipline on the way I say things. The language and sentiments are... allowed to mellow from time to time. As such, it gives me an opportunity to examine ideas I'm reading or things that I'm feeling. Or just plain rant. The conclusion is not so important, it is, as they say, all about the process. That is because I'm a philosopher, and philosophy is about examining ideas, rather than stating conclusions.

I write about the things I am doing, or discovering, because that helps clarify my thoughts and actions. I write about things that catch my attention. Too often that is politics. For a long time, I wrote far too much about the murky inner workings of my psyche, and as meaningless as that would be to others, it helped me. How often did I write something and soon afterwards think, well, that's nonsense. Jumping from one subject to another is not going to bring a consistent audience: what, after all, is this guy writing about?

Several things have been a big part of my life for a long time. Fiction, and later on, non-fiction. Listening to music, and playing it for personal satisfaction. Exercise. Photography. I've been sober for over a third of my life.

What can I bring to writing about any of that? There are enough hi-fi channels, music magazines and radio stations around, and some of those people do actually know what they are talking about. Some, but far from all. And even if they do believe in `burn-in', their views on other things might still be sensible. Book reviews, movie reviews... there are plenty by people who know what they are talking about and have inside knowledge of the industry and the people. Why review movies when, until recently, there was Roger Ebert? There are photography channels and magazines run by all sorts of talented hard-working people. What do I have?

I have read thousands of books, and seen seen thousands of movies, but forgotten most of them. That may be the clue: maybe I should talk about the ones I remember, not only what's in them, but why I remember them.

Well, maybe I can share the stuff I liked. Why I like it, why it felt important to me at the time. Some of the things I've learned as well.

That feels like a plan.

At Last! The Speaker Upgrade (KEF LS50)

First, sort out your speaker set-up.

Second, sort out the room, at least a bit. You may want to hold off on thousand-pound acoustic panels and bass-traps.

Third, get to know the sound of your new, improved music collection.

Fourth, work out what's missing or wrong with the new, improved sound. That will take a month or so.

Now you can think about upgrading.

UPGRADE THE SPEAKERS FIRST. (Says everyone.) Assuming your amp and sources are at least a decent mid-fi.

Look at what the professionals have in the background of their YT sets.

Almost all of them have had a pair of KEF LS50's on display at one time or another. Paul McGowan has a pair.

John Darko said that if you can get a pair of the originals (not the Meta) at a decent discount, that would be the deal of the year.

Guess what? Sevenoaks Hi-Fi are or were selling them at a 33% discount, with an effective 28-day trial period.

(Pauses to read debit card details over the phone.)

Two days later they arrived (and I still can't get anyone to look at double-glazing after a month).

I already know where to put them, so I swap out the B&W 686's.

Select Bruckner 5. Press play.

Holy ****.

The violins are on the left. The cellos are on the right. The horns are on the left and to the centre. There are instruments I hadn't heard before. I can play it louder without it being painful. And nobody in the orchestra gets up and wanders over to the corner of the room.

These things are so clear they even make sense, okay, almost makes sense, of Shoreline (7/4), which I swear was especially mixed to defeat the best stereo systems ever made. I could actually play that Broken Social Scene CD without wincing.

Bedrock's Signals became a shimmering, echoing delight.

I have Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony 1 playing now. Each instrument is distinct, each note has a beginning, a middle and an end. In that order.

The difference is about the same as the difference between a three year-old Ford Mondeo and a Jaguar XF.

Some things really are better than others.