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

@malibu457 In my estimation implementation of greatly improved ADC in recording studios was responsible for much of digital SQ improvement. For streaming , lossless services.

I've never had a single long term failure with streaming, user error has been occasional issue with custom path I've taken, Plug n play is pretty foolproof these days, needn't be reason for avoiding streaming.

i am also referring to recording decades old, back in the analog days...they sound so much better now either as digital playback or streamed. i would love to read a history of the last four decades of the parallel milestones in both the recording and playback chain. make for a good article for the big magazines and start from the 70’s. what where the breakthrough players and the pioneers behind them. step by step. chip design, implementation, PSU, development of architecture and approaches. a complete holistic survey of the last 50 years of digitals evolution.

Spotify family lo res for research and on the move and then if I love something I get on CD or vinyl (both comparable in quality on my system luckily)

Has cut down purchases for sure ... Some stuff I listen to on training runs ornturbo I would never buy HaHa it's a pace speed thing

Here's a newbie question. Do most streamers allow you to listen to a specific radio station via url? 

Yes on Ifi zs.  A few hundreds of choices. Most plays up to 320kbps mp3 / AAC.  A handful of them play flac but you do not expect the same quality of streaming.  Played with some lags so some people actually think the radio station feature is not working.