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Playing CDs sounds better than Qobuz — dammit

I’ve built a decent HeadFi rig over the past few months and am quite happy with it streaming Qobuz as a source via my iPad/iPhone.  I recently brought my CD player into the rig as there are some reference CDs I need that aren’t available on Qobuz.  Well, I made the mistake of playing some CDs and compared them to Qobuz, and in every case the CD sounds better — specifically a quieter background and more transparency overall.  I’ve got good cables from the dongle out of my iPad to the USB cable that runs to my DAC for streaming, so let’s leave cables out of the discussion for now because I think this goes deeper than that.  Needless to say I’m pretty disappointed right now because I’ve enjoyed not spinning discs over the past year or so and certainly don’t wanna go back to buying CDs again.  Ugh.

So, what I’m thinking is that streaming over WiFi through my iDevices may be the bottleneck.  IF that’s the case and I need to up my streaming game, what would be the cheapest way to go to overcome the bottleneck?  My thought is going hardwired (which I can do) to something like an iFi Stream or maybe a ProJect Streambox, but just wondering if that’d get it done?  Something else?  I need something pre-made and won’t wrestle with doing a Raspberry Pi with hats, etc. as I have no patience for configuring/troubleshooting tech.  Thanks for any advice/thoughts. 

soix
lordmelton's avatar
lordmelton
877 posts
 

@soix Everything is going to sound different, better or worse. Different CD players are going to sound different but one thing I can honestly say is that a computer, NUC or Raspberry POS is never going to sound as good as a quality dedicated storage/streamer.

From experience I really tried to get the computer thing to work but it just doesn't.

If you want real sound you have to get a dedicated streamer with everything that goes with it, but first rip your CDs and see what sound you're getting from a quality storage device not a NAS or USB/HDD.

soix OP
9,456 posts
 

I used to use a dongle and when I switched to a hard wired streamer the sound quality drastically improved. 

So, @vanson1 you seem to have a similar experience to mine.  What streamer did you find was a big improvement over streaming through iDevices?

sns
3,193 posts
 

Get your network and streamer optimized, you won't go back to playing cd's. I'm at point where I cannot tell between cd rips and streams.

vanson1
126 posts
 

Hi SOIX

For the sake of not getting into a brand discussion as everyone on this forum likes what they own better than anything else, I will only say that you should buy one that has the features you need. The software that is used to operate it is also really important. 

Many will operate using your phone which is really convenient.  Some have built in DACS and some do MQA if that is important to you.  

I have found that just the streamer itself,  they all pretty much sound alike. 

It's the DAC that makes a difference. 

 

But for sure,  a wired dedicated streamer Will pass more and cleaner data.

pedroeb
493 posts
 

Would it be better if I had a CD or download? I just don't care...

I'm glad you're satisfied.

If one is clearly superior to the other then maybe you should unless you are easily pleased.

I must admit to occasionally listening to AAC 192 kbps at lower levels and being satisfied.

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