OP
I get the feeling from reading your post that you would be more comfortable staying with CDs and not going the streamer mode. A few observations:
1) Regarding SQ, there is no inherent reason why streaming vs CD replay should vary in quality. They both extract digital streams and feed them to a DAC. If the equipment is good enough your CDs should sound the same whether they are spinning on a transport or residing on a computer drive. There are a lot of threads here that debate this, but most people are comparing a $300 CD player vs a 5 K streamer, or vice versa. Streaming is the hot technology now so there are more streamer choices out there than CD players.
2) CD replay tends to be easier. Nothing beats pop in disc and hit play. Of course, you need to physically do this, but since vinyl is your preferred playback media, apparently a little physical effort does not flummox you. Streamers basically are computers and therefore subject to the same networking issues. Did you ever have a printer that has always worked suddenly go off line for reasons that are no fault of your own? Read these threads and you will find dozens of complaints about an update from the streamer company, or Apple/Google/Microsoft, suddenly rendering their collections inaccessible.
3)Otoh, once those CDs have been ripped to a streamer, and assuming that you don’t have the issues mentioned above, then the convenience issues are different. It can be great (well, maybe not for your health) to sit on the sofa and use a tablet to pick your music.
You may enjoy it so much that you will add a streamer service and use it to play the music that you have on lp and not vinyl.
So here is what I am doing. I bought the Melco N100 server/streamer. It has a 2 TB HD. I also bought their CD Ripper/CD
transport, the E 100, which wii both rip CDs or function as a transport for CD replay. The E100 needs to be attached to the N100
in order to work, but it’s built like a tank, makes great rips, and sounds better than my Oppo 105 as a CD transport into the same DAC. Total the cost around $3K. The Melco has worked for me with less IT issues than other streamers that have passed through my system from Bluesound,Bryston,SHM, and Arcam. Melco is also compatible with Tidal and Qobuz (and Roon) but not other services, at least at this time, AFAIK
I get the feeling from reading your post that you would be more comfortable staying with CDs and not going the streamer mode. A few observations:
1) Regarding SQ, there is no inherent reason why streaming vs CD replay should vary in quality. They both extract digital streams and feed them to a DAC. If the equipment is good enough your CDs should sound the same whether they are spinning on a transport or residing on a computer drive. There are a lot of threads here that debate this, but most people are comparing a $300 CD player vs a 5 K streamer, or vice versa. Streaming is the hot technology now so there are more streamer choices out there than CD players.
2) CD replay tends to be easier. Nothing beats pop in disc and hit play. Of course, you need to physically do this, but since vinyl is your preferred playback media, apparently a little physical effort does not flummox you. Streamers basically are computers and therefore subject to the same networking issues. Did you ever have a printer that has always worked suddenly go off line for reasons that are no fault of your own? Read these threads and you will find dozens of complaints about an update from the streamer company, or Apple/Google/Microsoft, suddenly rendering their collections inaccessible.
3)Otoh, once those CDs have been ripped to a streamer, and assuming that you don’t have the issues mentioned above, then the convenience issues are different. It can be great (well, maybe not for your health) to sit on the sofa and use a tablet to pick your music.
You may enjoy it so much that you will add a streamer service and use it to play the music that you have on lp and not vinyl.
So here is what I am doing. I bought the Melco N100 server/streamer. It has a 2 TB HD. I also bought their CD Ripper/CD
transport, the E 100, which wii both rip CDs or function as a transport for CD replay. The E100 needs to be attached to the N100
in order to work, but it’s built like a tank, makes great rips, and sounds better than my Oppo 105 as a CD transport into the same DAC. Total the cost around $3K. The Melco has worked for me with less IT issues than other streamers that have passed through my system from Bluesound,Bryston,SHM, and Arcam. Melco is also compatible with Tidal and Qobuz (and Roon) but not other services, at least at this time, AFAIK