To Stream or Not to Stream

@mijostyn.  “Streaming is for background music only. In no way shape or form is it ready for serious listening. ”
Like all things in audio, it depends. But if you choose equipment carefully  for high fidelity. That statement is categorically wrong. It was probably true at some point… 10 years ago… 7 years ago. I am not sure… it would be hard to know unless all you did was audio review. Depends on the level of performance and cost. But streaming quality can equal and exceed the sound quality of CD and definitely be well within the audiophile performance envelope.

Jump in with both feet and I promise you will wish you had done it sooner.  But keep your CDs, they are fun to look at and you likely have many that have not been mastered to digital (yet).  I ripped about a thousand of my CDs before I discovered Tidal and Qobuz which both have better sounding Hi-rez versions.  Other than my rare CDs, I wonder if it was time well spent, but I do have a nice safe backup copy of a thousand of my CDs.  One nice thing about ripping your CDs is that it forces you to go through your collection and find the CDs you forgot you owned, which is nice.  I have Qobuz because I like the sound slightly better than Tidal and I really enjoy buying and downloading albums from Qobuz, but either sound great.   The single best thing about streaming and listening to my local collection is Roon.  Roon has shown me so many artists that I never heard of but now love, and it has many other great features.  Roon allows me to easily stream music from mine, and most importantly, my wife's laptop or phone, or whatever we have at hand to any room in my house because I bought cheap Roon compatible streamers to plug into audio gear in every room except the main listening room which got the good stuff.  Guests would think we own an expensive whole house sound system if I didn't ramble on and on about Roon.  Go for it!  You won't regret it.

The single best thing about streaming and listening to my local collection is Roon.

I could not agree more, thyce.

I upgraded from an Aurender to Roon Nucleus+ to Innuos Zen mini with external power supply running as Roon Core.  Roon crushes Aurender’s conductor controls and Aurender is not Roon compatible.  Though it shouldn’t need to be repeated… today’s High Resolution providers such as Qobuz and Tidal now can eclipse CD redbook standards and anyone using lossy compression formats is more than a decade behind the times.

Jump in and enjoy!

I have a library of about 700 CDs.  Maybe 5 are not available between Qobuzz and Tidal not to mention thousands of internet radio stations, many CD quality, some even better.  The exposure to new music from streaming radio stations and the ability to then access the performers or bands discography without leaving your chair is amazing.
Remember, digital sound quality starts at the wall plug.
Cambridge CXNv2 >>> Benchmark DAC 3b.