We want to love 'luxury' hi-fi music streaming. But there are problems

TIDAL, a new service from Norway’s Aspiro Group, streams ultra-high-quality digital music for $20 a month. Its “lossless” files are compression-free, meaning audio has lost no quality after being converted to playable digital files from the original recordings, unlike mp3s and other files commonly used in streaming. [...] But high-quality streaming is a half-measure. The real audiophiles – the people who might be willing to pay nearly triple the price of Netflix each month for high quality music – probably aren’t thinking about streaming at all. The cash-flush demographic is still more likely to buy vinyl, and maybe a CD or two, and listen to hi-fi stereos and headphones manufactured by the likes of Denon, Bose or Sennheiser. The journey is crucial for the end result: the vast majority of today’s headphones, computers and mobile devices aren’t designed to deliver truly high quality audio. Audiophiles know this, and unless they’re carrying $500-plus headphones around with them, they likely won’t notice the difference in sound on their iPhones. - Josh O’Kane,The Globe and Mail [via/web:http://streaming-tv.us]