@vitussl101
Obviously it depends on the equipment one compares. But a CD player is a mechanical device that reads a file off of a CD, a streamer, and a DAC. The file could just as easily be sourced off of a hard drive, or the internet. Noise is a critical factor in putting combinations of these functions together… But there is nothing inherently making a CD or SACD player better / or different sounding like is the case with a turntable. I have owned many CD Players, and streamed. High end audio streamers are now available that can equal or best CD / SACD players at different price points. They have the added advantage of giving you access to virtually unlimited high quality (much of it High resolution) music for the price of one CD per month.
My system is only one example of this, at the higher end admittedly. I have a Audio Research Reference CD9se and a Aurender W20SE. I can directly compare a streaming copy of a red book CD and the red book CD version. My preamp supports gain equalization allowing me to directly compare. No difference… although it wouldn’t surprise me if I listened long enough I wouldn’t find the streamed copy better because I am sure the base noise level of the Aurender is slightly quieter than the ARC CD player (Aurender uses battery power). The key here is that the Qobuz for instance has a lot of high resolution material and it is getting larger every day. The cost is near zero at $19.99 month… you don’t have to buy and store disks… etc.
I’m not just trying to be an argumentative jerk here. I don’t want folks to be thinking if I want the best digital sound They need to buy a CD player and collect disks. That is simply not true any more. Sure, some folks may still want to do it, that is an individuals choice. But the age of the CD is over. It is just a storage media. Over the next years more and more folks are going to be choosing streaming over CDs. As I said it is fundamentally different than analog where there is a difference in the sound of a vinyl disk..
Obviously it depends on the equipment one compares. But a CD player is a mechanical device that reads a file off of a CD, a streamer, and a DAC. The file could just as easily be sourced off of a hard drive, or the internet. Noise is a critical factor in putting combinations of these functions together… But there is nothing inherently making a CD or SACD player better / or different sounding like is the case with a turntable. I have owned many CD Players, and streamed. High end audio streamers are now available that can equal or best CD / SACD players at different price points. They have the added advantage of giving you access to virtually unlimited high quality (much of it High resolution) music for the price of one CD per month.
My system is only one example of this, at the higher end admittedly. I have a Audio Research Reference CD9se and a Aurender W20SE. I can directly compare a streaming copy of a red book CD and the red book CD version. My preamp supports gain equalization allowing me to directly compare. No difference… although it wouldn’t surprise me if I listened long enough I wouldn’t find the streamed copy better because I am sure the base noise level of the Aurender is slightly quieter than the ARC CD player (Aurender uses battery power). The key here is that the Qobuz for instance has a lot of high resolution material and it is getting larger every day. The cost is near zero at $19.99 month… you don’t have to buy and store disks… etc.
I’m not just trying to be an argumentative jerk here. I don’t want folks to be thinking if I want the best digital sound They need to buy a CD player and collect disks. That is simply not true any more. Sure, some folks may still want to do it, that is an individuals choice. But the age of the CD is over. It is just a storage media. Over the next years more and more folks are going to be choosing streaming over CDs. As I said it is fundamentally different than analog where there is a difference in the sound of a vinyl disk..