Streaming 101

I have a couple thousand CDs. If you streaming correctly it will sound as good as red book CD and better with higher resolution music from Qobuz or other HQ streaming services. The age of ripping CDs is about over. I would not waste time and money on it. On the other hand lots of streamers come with storage... My streamers came with storage and I had ripped all my CDs over the last 20 years. I haven’t played them once.

Since your looking at fairly high quality equipment... I’ll mention Aurender again. I guess if I was looking in that price range I would recommend a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC and a Aurender N100 Streamer (no DAC in it). The Yggdrasil is very inexpensive at ~$2,500 with performance of twice that. This combo would put you in some solid performance for ~ $5K

You can see my systems by clicking on my ID... I started on my system in 1973... have been upgrading to where my systems are today.

Thoughtful replies all, thank you. I've always been a "vinyl rules" guy and had to be led kicking and screaming into the cd world,now here I am again late to the party at 66 years old! Looking forward to a new discovery, be well.

Have just begun on the streaming route.

A Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra, which is plugged into my Dac.

Have a USB flash drive plugged in with my few Hi Res albums.

A hard drive with my burned CD collection.

Have listened to the Hi Res files. Very good so far. Now have to figure out how to stream from NAS, and Spotify/Tidal.

My Blue Sound Node 2 sounds almost, almost as good as my Marantz SA 8004 CD. What fun. 

I think you can access the DAC on the Esoteric X-01 D2.  It has a coax and an optical input on the back correct?