Does the streamer effect sound quality

I went from the very good Bluesound Vault 2i  to an Aurender N200 and it was a huge difference.     Great machine. 

But CDs sound better than any high end streamer right?  Assuming the same DAC.

I'm not so sure about that.   There is a lot of 24/96 and higher material out there.   The other night I was playing Pete Yorn's 2003 The Day I Forgot on vinyl.   It sounded really good.   Just for S&G I played the same album on Qobuz and it sounded pretty damn good.     It told me one thing , I need a better cartridge......

@texbychoice 

Thank you for your comments. I understand what you are saying.

@ossicle2brain …”But CDs sound better than any high end streamer right?  Assuming the same DAC.”

Definitely not. While all is equipment dependent. My streaming sounds better than an exact same red book CD, while very slightly… and Qobuz has one half million high resolution albums… so those sound better.

I was pretty convinced that my streamer and CDs of the same recording sounded the same. Xfinity recently knocked out my internet during an upgrade and I listened to CDs for a little over a week. I did notice the background noise floor was higher on the CDs. My CD transport  / DAC is the same. The best I have heard, an Audio Research CD9SE… and the streamer a Aurrender W20SE. So, the streamer is providing a quieter signal than the internal CD player. 

This can be true at different levels of investment. But there is nothing inherent that makes spinning a local data source (CD) better sonically than the file coming in through the internet.