Why are so many people spending so much money to build “perfect” streaming system?

Being an older person (76) simplifying life where possible is important to me and one of the reasons for streaming my music. Music streamer, dedicated DAC, integrated amp, CD burner, and a pair of speakers are all that is needed. No record or CD collection or the electronics to play them is needed. The CDs all have been down loaded to the music server and then sold or given away. We use Tidal and once they learn what you listen to through AI they post a daily collection of 10 songs similar to what you listen to. This opens up a whole world of new songs and artists to listen to. On forums like this one posters will occasionally post favorite songs they listen to, and instead of having to purchase and album or CD, just pull it up from the streaming service and your music world expands even more. Cost for a music system ranges from a few hundred $ to thousands of $$ depending on your budget. Figuring out what to buy can be intimidating but there are a lot of experience posters on these forums with good recommendations. Jump into the streaming pool you won't regret it.

Happy New Year,

Craig

I'm simply not ready to give up my collection of bought music yet. I can play you streams and I would dare someone to sit there and claim there is something missing. I doubt my sanity all the time because I start by playing records but after a couple sides I just would rather sit in the chair and play things at my leisure through streaming.  We have all been given a dream scenario for listening to music and we seem to not be able to accept just how fantastic streaming is. I could buy a condo in Florida with my music collection money and I wouldn't have lost any of the music minus a small number of non streamable albums which I could keep. The question really should be 'why aren't more of us going to streaming only?'.

Interesting how @walkenfan2013 has disappeared from the conversation.  Guess he continues to think that, somehow, streaming is more expensive than other forms of audio playback.

God knows.

@bubba12 

As much as I tout streaming here, I'm not ready to contemplate ditching my other media sources. First off, I just have too much stuff that isn't, and will probably ever be, available on line or over the aether.

Another sticking point is that streaming is dependent on hardware & software that, in my experience, just seems to go bad every so often, often without warning. Every once in a while the laptop I use to  command the streaming festivities just doesn't perform the task, whether it's because it needs a software update or the update I've just downloaded puts my streaming capabilities temporarily out of whack.

Finally, yeah, I do like to gaze at album covers, hold printed opera libretti & lyric sheets in my hands, and gaze at the vintage pictures the liner notes often include. I enjoy reading the technical data, too. Who produced the record? Who was the engineer? Where was it recorded?