Is using streaming services worthy of an audiophile?

Hi,

I understand your concern @defiantboomerang but Tidal is okay. You can invest savely in streaming. I use It next tot my cd collection and FM tuner/antenna and couldn’t be happier.

I use a Rasberry Pi 3b with digi + pro board combined with Mood audio. This is a very cheap setup. Look it up on YouTube Hans beekhuyzen. Use Dbpoweramp’s to rip your cd’s to aiff. Done. You can mod it, or let somebody else mod it for you and you will go in the stratosphere, believe. Also not costly
If you need help, you can pm me.

Last night i had a terrific musical evening. Playing albums from my childhood streamed via Tidal. Reliving audiophile gems which i don’t own in the cd collection. Quality speaking, It’s absolutely amazing. High end without a doubt.

If you also throw Roon in the mix, you will not stop listening tot music. And quality goes up even higher. I Will Roon up later this year with my rasberry. My Roon trial version was *drool* Need to have it ;)

I have yet to find a Redbook track on Tidal that's not as good or better sounding than the CD version I play locally on a high-end Ayre CD player.  Then there's MQA on Tidal which generally sounds better than their Redbook versions.  Not to mention that Tidal is mobile so I use it while in the car or travelling.  We recently used Tidal in rental cars driving through Italy & Spain with very little streaming interruption even in small villages. Pretty hard to beat at almost any price.

Loomisjohnson-who says you need a computer screen in your face? My computer is 100 ft away from my dedicated audio room. Right now, i’m Shuffling between 34 albums of Paul Hardcastle which is a mix of ripped cds on my computer and from tidal, using Roon. I can put my iPad down for over a day without missing a beat.
i have been thru the stage of having a computer hooked up to my dac, never again. My system sounds so much better without using any USB cable, and just accessing my server thru my iPad.

@rbstehno 
Exactly
As I said I use tidal through my bluos app on my phone just using the home wired network(vault 2 uses hardwire not wireless to ensure no signal dropout) and computer is so far from my mind at all times.
Pushs of a few buttons and I am flipping between tidal MQA, my own ripped music and even internet radio stations.
Quality surpasses 44.1 Redbook CD imho

@cycles2

How can a Redbook track sound better on Tidal than on a CD? Are they not the same? I mean, bit by bit?