Digital Dilemma

Get an old Marantz CD-94 which is more of a reference player that the one you own.

Here in my office, I ’stream light’, primarily free YouTube and Pandora, nothing special or paid for: just Fios ethernet, pc intel motherboard with integral video/audio, usb 3.0 out to inexpensive DAC to my Little Luxman 10 wpc tube integrated and restored AR-2ax speakers which have the advantage of high and mid level controls to ’tune’ them to any space they find themselves.

I’m quite happy, thus I rarely play a CD here, just make copies for car or friend. Also LP and R2R here, sometimes I remember them, but ease of streaming and hopping around to new to me music is fun.

Main system: No Streaming: LP’s 1st, CDs 2nd, R2R 3rd (even though most involving sound), FM last.

Home Theater, 5.1: Fios ethernet, router, modem, Sony: Smart TV, AVR, Blu-Ray. DBX Soundfield FL/FR; Klipsch center and rear; Velodyne sub with 1,000 w amp.

Lot’s of Streaming: recorded Idol, Voice, Talent; hop about on YouTube for known and unknown artists, rarely Pandora here. DVD Movies and Music Videos, not CDs

I’m quite happy with the sound of this Sony system, no interest in going for ’real streaming’. I also find, changing some content to 2 channel sounds better. Not the system, good 5,1 sounds awesome, but some surround content ain’t done well.

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IF I ever get the bug to 'stream high quality', before I plunk money down (adds up to a lot) I would want to take my Sony xa5400ES to a friend's system, compare it to their great sounding streaming.

@navyachts 

So the conclusion was that the same CD played through the R26 sounded more or less the same as when you played it only through the Onkyo only? That implies that the R26 isn't the cause of any sonic differences you're hearing.

Make sure the volume is matched if you try to compare the streaming service against the CD player. Even a small difference in volume can make you prefer one over the other.

Finally, keep in mind that the streaming service can have a different version of the same recording in their library. If you want to test your streaming playback chain, I suggest ripping the CD to FLAC, streaming the files through the R26 and comparing that against the CD played through the Onkyo.

LOL at all the excuses.  Has anybody actually LISTENED at length to a C-7030 CD player?  It is a true hidden gem.

Bottom line is that the Onkyo C-7030 is a very good transport with an outstanding  built-in DAC.  It will be hard to beat that unit with other digital front-ends even using separate transports and DACs.   To equal the performance of the Onkyo built-in DAC, it's probably necessary to fork out $4K or more.  It's just that good.  And as a transport, the C-7030 does a quite nice job although some might find it a little slow on seek.  

FULL DISCLOSURE:  I have been using a C-7030 for years mostly as a transport.  I get somewhat better results on CD playback using an "Unobtanium Black DAC" that was a custom-built prototype by a now-retired manufacturer.  

A Lot of this apparent disparage of sound quality, Isn't coming from your streamer but from the source of the music that the particular site is using or even the engineers that originally recorded the album.
I get angry when some people accuse some device for bad sound quality when they are listening to a poorly engineered or mastered album. And I see a lot of this.
On the other other hand there is a matter of what the quality of the is when listening to streamed music. I know on Qobuz that you can see what their source quality is supposed to be, i.e. HD or CD. I seldom see HD even offered on may of the songs I want to listen to, so just because it is coming for XXX.com streaming site doesn't mean it is a superior quality recording that you are reviewing.
Finally I often see certain albums offered on Lets say, Youtube that are from the exact same source as Spotify or Qobuz. So many people will talk trash about one over another yet they are the exact same source file being played. This can be seen and proven by noticing that on some cuts they tunicate a song or have a particular oddity like a skip in the middle of a song that is apparent on all sites. This shows that possibly much of our music is given to the sites from some 'OFFICIAL' source, to al sites. This would indicate that it isn't the source that is different, but "POSSIBLY" something  like a sites streaming algorithm or web connection is the fault.