The difference between Qoboz stream vs purchased songs

@gkelly I'm on a fixed income as well in that I have to strategically make hi-fi purchases relating to substantial upgrades. I have a family to raise and the kids and wife seem to vacuum up my $ and time. But that's life right?

I have a modest mid-Fi system that consists of a Cambridge CD player, the CXN-V2 streamer/DAC, Marantz AVR (used primarily as a preamp for 2-channel listening), a vintage Adcom GFA-2 amp, Rega Planar 3 and mid-tier Polk Audio monitor speakers. AQ Evergreen connects. I plan to make some tweaks by upgrading my speakers and maybe swapping out the Marantz and Adcom combo for a better integrated amp w/ a phono stage. I can't justify buying nor do I want to have tons of separates. 

I stream via Spotify and Radio Paradise for general streaming and previewing music. I have a mix of vinyl, digital files and CDs. I've been ripping older CDs I don't want to keep or listen to that much as FLAC files and purging. I only really buy specific artists that I like and want to enjoy higher quality/better listening experience. I get not wanting to have a ton of physical media. It takes up space and with streaming you can enjoy an infinite amount of great albums with little investment. My recommendation is purchasing only the music that means the most to you or gives you the greatest listening satisfaction or if you're a completist for certain artists. I'm one album away from having all of the New Pornographers on vinyl, ditto w/ Calexico and some other favorites of mine. I'm limited on space and my wife already things I'm too high maintenance w/ my space requirements for my music and book collections.

Streaming on Oubuz can be totally awesome. From what I can tell it is the equal of any other source. Maybe I'm cheap but having to own stuff rather than accessing it from the cloud is basically like throwing money away. If there was a true quality difference, then I might reconsider, but right now having access to more good music than I'll ever have time to listen to is quite enough to satisfy me and my checkbook.

fredrik222

No, what was proven is that you don't understand how Ethernet and streaming services work. We went over that.

Ad hominem, logical fallacy.

The link I provided showed details of a simple demonstration that disproved your claim that a song is "downloaded" to a cache in entirety before playback starts. I knew you were mistaken before I conducted the experiment, but I did it anyway, in part to encourage others to do the same. Perhaps there might be something to learn about the sizing of a streamer's cache, or even how that cache is stored, but that's a difficult discussion to have with anyone who truly believes a streamed song is downloaded in full to cache before playback starts. Indeed, you conflate streaming, caching, and downloads as though they are all the same thing. It's rather like claiming an SUV is a car. In a way, an SUV is rather like a car, but it's different. Hence, we make distinction between it and a car for the purpose of clarity.

To be fair  to you, if all you ever download is the latest 3-minute Katy Perry (or whomever) pop hit, it is possible that the entire track will be in cache before it starts to play. After all, those are often very brief tunes and my cache held about 3 minutes of music.

OP,

A digital download is usually the same format as as when it’s streamed, so there’s little to no difference in the sound when played on either.

@fredrik222 

Like Juan from Bliss Hifi, I’ve heard differences in the quality of the presentation that has me shrugging my shoulders.  The first ‘what the…” moment was when I totally upgraded the power feeding my system.  The second was when I upgraded the 3’ Ethernet cable from the wall to my streamer.  Both of these transformed my system with the Ethernet upgrade having the lesser improvement, but I really don’t understand this difference given what you said, and I have no reason to doubt you, that error correction is the same.  It makes sense that it is the same in that Ethernet protocol is set, but it leaves me at a loss as to how changing the Ethernet cable can make a difference.  Either I have a preference for a low bank account balance, or there is something else going on.