I think bgoeller's post was very good and, overall, it matches my experiences, especially his ranking of quality levels and stressing the importance of provenance in downloads.
I haven't downloaded any DSD files yet, only 24/96 files, but I perceive significant sound quality improvements with downloads that have the provenance of being recorded/mixed direct to digital, mainly in increased levels of details, much greater and more realistic dynamic ranges and stereo soundstage imaging three-dimensionality and realism. This makes sense since these are literally exact copies of the master recordings.
I use a Lumin D2 dac/streamer, a separate Synology hard drive and an iPad as an interface, mainly for convenience but also because the sound quality is very good. I currently have all my cds ripped to the hard drive, along with numerous hi-res 24/96 files, and hardly use my cd player any more. I use Tidal to stream through my main system and Spotify to stream through a laptop/dac/iheadphone amp system.
For overall sq, I'd definitely rate 24/96 downloads as the best, ripped cds next and streaming as the poorest quality. My opinion of just streaming sq, however, is that Tidal is better than Spotify.
Tim
I haven't downloaded any DSD files yet, only 24/96 files, but I perceive significant sound quality improvements with downloads that have the provenance of being recorded/mixed direct to digital, mainly in increased levels of details, much greater and more realistic dynamic ranges and stereo soundstage imaging three-dimensionality and realism. This makes sense since these are literally exact copies of the master recordings.
I use a Lumin D2 dac/streamer, a separate Synology hard drive and an iPad as an interface, mainly for convenience but also because the sound quality is very good. I currently have all my cds ripped to the hard drive, along with numerous hi-res 24/96 files, and hardly use my cd player any more. I use Tidal to stream through my main system and Spotify to stream through a laptop/dac/iheadphone amp system.
For overall sq, I'd definitely rate 24/96 downloads as the best, ripped cds next and streaming as the poorest quality. My opinion of just streaming sq, however, is that Tidal is better than Spotify.
Tim