CD or Streaming... am I missing out?

Try plugging your office system into your computer to start. (I assume you have a computer in your office.) If you have a laptop or desktop, you should have at least USB out. The MacBook 3.5mm connection doubles as optical out. And a windows desktop may have USB, optical, and coax outputs. You may have options.

I recommend trying the free trials for Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon high res. By the time you've exhausted the free trials, Spotify may have released it's CD quality tier. Spotify was far superior in its user interface when I ran my experiment. I currently use Qobuz for it's sound quality, but I'll be switching back to Spotify as soon as that CD quality tier launches. I used Spotify for about a 5-year period. The curated and rotating playlists, ability to discover new music, content layout, and access to content makes it the best. I find that Qobuz routinely lacks content I want to hear and doesn't help me to find the content I'd like to discover. 

Also, there's a social media element to Spotify. When you want to share songs with friends and family and you send them a link, the recipient is most likely to have Spotify account. 

I use both, CD and streaming and I have the Oppo BD 105 blu ray player and the Audiolab 6000N streamer with DTS Play Fi that gives me great convenience and access to many music apps Most of the time I'm using Qobuz and really enjoy discovering new artists that I've never heard before ( l live a sheltered life) and also hearing artists I've know for decades but don't have their CD
To improve the sound quality  l have the Exogal Comet plus external DAC and bypass the internal DAC in the Audiolab 

The streaming process is prone to loss that CD's dont have, because it involves a more complicated delivery chain to get the bytes to the DAC - which involves traveling through your network EQ that introduces noise and bit-timing issues to the DAC.

The streaming process is prone to loss that CD’s dont have, because it involves a more complicated delivery chain to get the bytes to the DAC - which involves traveling through your network EQ that introduces noise and bit-timing issues to the DAC.

The  jitter figures will be higher, has anyone seen any measured data on this??

Cheers George

Hi,

Really depends at what level of the audio spectrum you are looking, if mobile is one thing then streaming is ok. If High End then CDT + DAC may be the safest.

Has you may know in Audio is timing critical, and on a CD player or a CDT + DAC you get a controlled environment, where all the aspects of the implementations have been thought through.

On streaming, if using an external provider there is a part of the signal path that you will never control (basically all that comes before your home router) and can affect timing and other variables. If you use a in house streaming like Roon or HQ player then you probably can get very good results. But in both situations and on the side that you control, you need to pay attention to the implementation detail.

I still have CD's because they help me:
1. Compare the SQ of the external streaming services
2. Compare the SQ of my in house streaming
3. Spin CD's just for fun of it :-D