Why Purchase A CD Player or Transport ?


I am 100% invested in vinyl, but want to improve my digital equipment chain.

Once I’ve upgraded my streaming equipment, why purchase a quality CD/SACD transport?

Is there a large enough subset of music that sounds better via optical media?

vonhelmholtz

One thing overlooked is all the time, money, blood, sweat and tears it can take to assemble a fine streaming set up. Mastering that, how could anyone say it's not as good as playing a CD?

All I did was add the iFi Zen Stream (with upgraded power supply), linked it to my WiFi and that’s all it took.  As others said, it doesn’t need to be that hard at all. 

 

I might move to the AirLens from the iFi Zen Stream 

@vonhelmholtz Just curious if you’re using the upgraded iFi power supply for the Zen?

 

Just curious if you’re using the upgraded iFi power supply for the Zen?

I added the iFi iPower Elite. This was a major improvement. Next I added a Shunyata system power conditioner and this improved all aspects of my system. When the Holo DAC arrives I’ll isolate the Zen Stream ethernet input by using two media converters and fiber optic cable. I will then decide if I want the AirLens.

I just ordered an external cd/dvd drive and will rip my CDs to my NUC server.  Contributor's remarks above made the move to a transport less of a priority for me.

@soix have you considered ripping those to a hard drive or NAS that you can locally stream? I find this better sounding than most transports. Just use a laptop and drive, good software like XLD rip them once and then play those CDs via network using your streaming software...

I have 1000s of soundboard concert recordings that aren't on the streaming services, so this is an important part of my streaming setup and many here do similar for various reasons. Cheers,

Spencer

The important thing is the music.I listen to Classical exclusively and I can actually find a CD on my shelves in most instances than I can find it from a commercial streaming service or even after I've ripped it to a HD.  Streaming from Qobuz can also sound quite good but I give nod to my CDs, ripped to a HD or direct replay.  And I have a ton of SACDs and Blu Rays and am able to extract the DSD layer from the former with my Oppo/Bryston DAC combination.