Streamed music sounds awful in my system and I don't know why ....

@fuzztone 

@audiotroy 

@kota1 

@oddiofyl 

@carlsbad 

@fuzztone 

@lalitk 

 +1

Start with you ditching both the PC and its Windows Media Player as your source and get a quality build and quality performance streamer/player/server.

Almost free experiment to try first: get the Minimserver program onto your PC. It will take the place of WMP. You may want to get BubbleUpNP if you have an Android device, too, which you would use as a convenient way to select the stream or file.

Dr John,

Try Qobuz, even on a laptop feeding a DAC via USB should be decent enough. You can chase improvements by throwing a lot of money at the problem, and you should see some minor benefits. A very good CD player is going to sound more musically complete and satisfying in my experience. I do stream music because it is so convenient, and the results can be very good indeed. Comparing albums streamed with same albums on my CD player sounds more complete on CD though. 

So you didn’t tell us the streaming source, streaming format, or player settings. You didn’t mention what you’ve done to isolate ground and noise.

Kinda like asking about your vinyl playback setup and saying "33 1/ rpm"

I'd be very wary about WMP in any serious chain,,,, older versions didnt even support USB high res audio media format 2.. the absolute basics

Learn ye about digital!

You don't need Roon or a high priced streamer. If you can't figure out how to make the streamer you have work, ask for help. Or just accept the BAD sound.