CD v Streamed

I’d say the answer to "which sounds better" is "depends".

Let’s assume that the "chains" in your system sound equally good:

CD player/DAC = Streaming source/DAC

I find that often the hi-res master that’s available for streaming from Qobuz is oftentimes more-recently mastered and oftentimes does sound a bit better than the mastered version on my CD.

I also find that some of my SACDs do sound a bit better then the FLAC files from Qobuz, but that’s atypical.

More times than not, I will select the Qobuz version over my CD/SACD version.

More recently mastered = Brickwalled/Compressed in most cases. CD’s of older titles from the 60’s thru 80’s sound best in their 1st generation masterings most of the time. Newer doesnt = better unless its been remixed by the likes of Steve Wilson/Keven Gray for a new special product launch. Just compare the DR’s. Again...you have to compare the ORIGINAL (Not Remastered) Discs to make a fair comparison. Go to DISCOGS to find what MATRIX # for each title is the 1st pressing...if its worth your bother that is.
Of course if your Spinner/Dac Combo is subpar that will also influence the quality of what you hear and might not be worth the bother of A/B-ing. Pugsley in Jersey City said his comparison of streaming vs CD was based on a 10 Year Old CD/Dac Player (K01).   Talk about a "fixed" fight!! LOL 

I tried out an Optical Media Converter today. After reading threads about this being an effective improvement I thought I would try it. Some months ago I put a network switch between my ROON server and the router which improved the sound. Still, 44.1kHz/16bit streaming was not quite as good as CD or the Ripped CD FLAC files on my server. The Optical Media Converter consists of two boxes with an Ethernet cable going in box A and fiber cable going out to Box B and then an ethernet cable going out of box B and into my server. The sound was noticeably better right away. Wow! This is an effective tweak. I did an A/B comparison with a couple of CDs to streaming 44.1/16 and I could no longer discern a difference. I was rocking for a few hours until the music stopped suddenly. Box B appears to be defective. The TX indicator light went out on both boxes indicating fiber failure. I did some troubleshooting and using my cellphone camera I can see a red light in the port of box A but no red light in box B. My fiber cable appears to be fine. I noticed after repacking these items that the seals were already broken on the ESD bags. I didn’t catch that when I took them out of the box. What’s up with Amazon these days?

an effective tweak. I did an A/B comparison with a couple of CDs to streaming 44.1/16 and I could no longer discern a difference.

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Thanks for this update,
I had a tech geek here in new orleans that **swore** I should dump cdp's and go Stream,
**Its soooo much better resolution**, I  just shuged it off.
Yesterday arrived the chinese 
~LKS Class A/JFET descrete opamps,~~
WOW, 
a  pair of duals @ $50/each , just to try them out,
WOW
I  immediaely order a  2nd pair, as the Jadis JS2/Mark2 takes 4 duals. 
I had a  pair of USA made duals and a  pair of chinese high tech descrete duals. 
These new JFET( not sure what this means, but they are really cool looking, even Richard Gray  was impressed = which is a surprise, as his stance is TI makes the best, due to huge lab team/superior engineers), 
WEll let me say just pop in a  single SA100  Descrete or these Dual JFET's, and your player will out shoot any newest DAC or Stream. 
Douk Audio sells duals and  singles  SA200/duals, and SA100/singles.
I passed up Douk and bought another model, the LKS Class A JFET.
Not sure which is superir, my guess is  both are close in performance,  but I think these LKS JFET's are the best bang for opamps. 
Item # 274403974731

I received my replacement optical converters today.  It appears the problem may have been in the fiber optic cable.  The old cable does not work at all.  The replacement cable works but one connector is a bit flaky. I had to manipulate the connector going into one converter box to make the connection.  An hour or so later the connection dropped and I had to reinsert the fiber cable.  I need a better solution for the fiber- perhaps I'll try multimode.  Perhaps those connectors are more robust.  Sound is excellent.  I have a CD transport that upsamples to DSD and sends the signal to the DAC via 3 BNC cables.  This Transport/DAC combo works very well with more resolution and a larger 3D soundstage than I ever thought possible with CDs.  So now, I played a CD back to back with streaming 44/1/16k again.  They are very very close.  Next I plan to fire up my analog rig and compare it to streaming.  I almost don't want to know.  Right now, my analog rig has a slight edge over CD with some records.  I guess I will not be able to post my comparison of streaming to vinyl here since this post is titled CD vs Streaming.  What an exciting time for audio.