CD Player vs. music streaming

Some knowledge can go a long way.  This article is one of many that discusses some of the science that is shrouded by the hype, commercialism and misinformation available on the internet...caveat emptor.

Don't be fooled by expensive streamers.  The BlueSound Node2i is great sounding.  I would suggest using TIDAL and connecting the Blue Sound to take advantage of MQA.

I think the days of playing CD's are coming to an end.  It is way more convenient to play music by using either a cell phone or computer to access your music without having to get up to change a CD.  You would also have to spend a fortune on high res CD's compared to just spending $20/month.  I would suggest hard wiring the BlueSound using CAT6 cable.  I just wish Bluesound offered video so it would be possible to view concerts.  I will bet they will be coming out with this option in the near future.

Hello guys a few points on this thread.

People here have to stop lauding the Bluesound Node as a high end solution, yes the Node sounds great for a $550.00 streamer and has an excellent gui and operating system, however, in a really good system it is not going to cut it as a dac or a streamer.

We consider the first real step at high end sound quality to be the Lumin D2 which in our tests far outperformed the Cambridge 851N.

Tatyanah, listen to an Innous Server particularly the Zen or Zenith the improvement in sound quality over either direct streaming or using a lower quality streamer is very noticable.

Mroeturner, you should try to get a demo of the Innous servers particularly the Zenith you will notice a very large improvement over the Nucleus. The Innous servers are far more technologically advanced in terms of noise reduction over the Nucleus  units, the Zen, Zenith and Statement models also feature an incoming and outgoing set of ethernet noise filters,  to keep noise out of the unit and to transmit a better quality ethernet signal to a streaming dac.

We have been playing in this arena for many years, a good server or a good streamer/dac will outperform a CD player easily, that is not saying there aren’t fantastic CD players but in all of our tests including a one of the world’s best CD players the T+A PDP 3000 is bettered by T+A’s stand alone reference dac with an Innous server or the Formula or the Ligtht Harmonic Davinci dual dac, these setups challenge the best in analog for a sense of palbability and pureness of midrange naturalness.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Have to generally agree with Audiotroy here.  I have a Node 2.  It’s an incredible unit for the price, but it’s not a high end streamer. It sounds great, but is easily bested by better units. In my experience, the streamer quality is as or more important than the DAC.  While I don’t have experience with Innuos server/streamers, I do with Aurender and Auralic as I own units from both companies and have been able to do A/B comparisons against the Node 2.  No contest.

And, if you pay attention to the details, a better streamer playing Tidal or Qoboz will easily equal a high quality CD player.  And, if you have files stored on a NAS, even better yet.