CD vs.same CD ripped to HD

I’ve gone back and forth between a Node 2i and my Cambridge CXC. Very, very hard to hear a difference. For me. YMMV.

With a CD player, I commit more to listening to several tracks on a disks. It’s nice to have that focus. Yet, on a streamer/HD, I can free associate, jumping from one cut to the next one it inspires. Nothing wrong with that.

Consider how you eat from dinner plate with multiple things on it; do you just eat the steak, then the potatoes, then the green beans, or do you rotate between them as you follow your feelings? Why would it be inherently better to stick with one thing any longer than you desired? It wouldn’t, for me.

Oh I have a streamer -- Node 2i -.  I get to skip around all I like and more.  The questions is about whether to rip my CDs so I can play them without having to move a muscle.

@rnm4 I see better. I was ripping a lot of my cds, too. Now, I'm not sure I need to since I can find them all on the web. 

Good discussion.
George makes ’very key points ’ in his argument that "ripped" CDs sound quality is not superior to the playing of the original CD directly.

@hilde45 makes the case of being able to flip through multiple recordings without having to rise from your listening seat (Or hardly move a muscle😊).
Charles

I use a Naim UnitiCore to rip and store the CD data.  It's ripper will read over and over the same spot if there is any problem to try and extract the correct data or determine what value to insert if it cannot read or it gets different results each time.  This is something that a CD player in real time may not be able to do.  Thus, the ripper has the potential to be better than a CD player.  The ripper also says whether there were any problem areas that had to be repaired by inserting data that is a guess. I have not had any CD where such repair had to be done, and I've ripped nearly 5,000 cds.  I had some where I noticed that progress or ripping temorarily stalls out, so that might be a region where multiple passes were needed to get a good reading, but ultimately, the ripper reported no problems.