Let’s face it—digital can be difficult to love. I spent about 7 years writing about nothing but digital, so I know from whence I speak.
Back in ye olden days, it was called Computer Audio which was very nearly impossible to love, unless you loved computers and tweaking. Some people still do and you can spend years futzing with your digital playback as you can with analog. In this way, these supposed opposites are identical.
But there is something to love, something to go mad over when it comes to digital and that thing is lossless streaming. I can very nearly hear the pucker of dissatisfaction from the analog camp over that mere suggestion but bear with me. After all, I’m one of you, too, as I grew up playing records and own not one but two (actually three) turntables. You can trust me. And the reason why lossless streaming is the most important development to hit hifi in decades is simply this—music discovery.
Nothing in the history of recorded music can touch the personal access to the world’s history of music—for the cost—that streaming delivers. Nothing. And this fact has changed my music listening habits dramatically because streaming is, for me, a dream come true even though there’s no there there, from a collector’s point of view. In terms of sound quality, there’s no issue. None. All things considered, streaming can sound as good as analog, worse than analog, and better than analog. Take your pick and pick your poison as it all depends on everything, including one’s attitude. [footnote 1]
Taster’s Choice: If you told me I had to choose between these two free options: a) I could only listen to the same 50 LPs for the rest of my life on a 50 million dollar hifi, or b) I could stream lossless music on a $50 system for the rest of my life I’d choose option b in no time flat.
You could say that’s because I’m more interested in music than hifi and I would say why do we have to make these kinds of stupid distinctions. Why do people, otherwise intelligent people, feel the need to view digital and analog as a moral choice? Why do people want to go to war, in internet terms, over a choice when we can easily choose both? Other than attitude, there is no reason at play.
You can read all kinds of “objective” certainty that explains how and why digital is superior to analog and if you spend your time reading instead of listening, I can almost see how this nonsense makes sense. OK, no I can’t. I recently invested in an analog rig to play back 78s. And no, this isn’t some kind of nostalgia that completely ignores playback quality but it does ignore, happily, the type of playback “quality” that believes the ultimate connection to music can be found in graphs without ever listening. Let that sink in.
I spend the better part of most days mostly listening to music that’s new to me. It’s what I crave, it’s what I love and there’s no way to accomplish this using physical media. No way. Streaming is the answer, as John Lennon sang, and if you feel inclined to point out that analog offers better sound—a kind of humaness, immediacy, and connection that cannot be found in digital—here’s what I have to say about that—enjoy it! I do.
Here’s the real trick—music is something to love. Hifi is how we manifest that love at home and at will, whether served, streamed, or spun. The only result that comes from attempting to limit choice by tossing a feeble either/or wrench into that mix has but one real outcome—there’s just less to love.
1. You can, and many people do make a similar argument about music. And it goes a little something like this, “Kind of Blue is one of the greatest albums ever made and no new music comes close to its greatness.” While I’m not inclined to think in those terms, I have to ask, so what? Does that mean we should spend the rest of our days listening to nothing but Kind of Blue? Or just music recorded in the 1940s? 1950s? 1960s?
Judging other people’s musical enjoyment is as meaningful an activity as looking in the mirror. Just ask Narcissus.
