SACD/CD Drive Mechanism Replacement

Don,

Monthly fee… like $14.99 you get assess to over ten million albums and thousands of internet channels. Yes, about the cost of one CD a month.

Streaming (assuming a good quality streamer) will sound the same as a red book CD or SACD if the same master and often HD versions may be available so the will sound better than a CD. On my system I can play a CD, stored file, streamed file and vinyl album they will sound the same. There is a bit of variability on the vinyl depending on what copy number it was on the master… later ones do not sound good.

I typically listen to full albums but you can search and find by albums, artists, songs or genre. There are lots of list (photos of album covers with artists and album name) of new releases and different kind of recommendations.

You can use an iPhone but you really want to use an iPad… you’ll start exploring a nearly infinite world of music quickly.

You also have a library… where any albums (or just songs) you like can be collected so you can easily find them. The streamer will go out and check and see if you have any albums on your network and copy them into your streamer if you want. There are playlists you can create of songs.

Whole new world… you want in.

Wowza, $14.99/mth is dirt cheap.  I pretty much consistently spend a few hundred or more monthly on vinyl records from all over the world.  I pay 2 to 3 x's more for the shipping of one record than the monthly fee of streaming, so that's a big win right there alone!

I'm glad to hear that you do not seem to hear a difference between the formats.

Do you think the streamer or the dac makes the most difference in the sound reproduction?

Because I've always listened to vinyl, I am used to and actually prefer listening to whole albums.

When you talk about the library... is that stored on the iPad or maybe in my case MacBook Pro laptop; or is it stored in the streamer with either built in storage or added on storage?

Thank you for taking the time to help me better understand this new world of music curation.

Best wishes,

Don

Guess who gets screwed  by the $15/month price. Just guess.

I guess the Artists get screwed.  What prize do I win?

The streamer and DAC are equally important. Typically it is best to spend equally… similar to turntable and phonostage. I have extensive experience with both. I have this theory that the DAC tends to set the tonal balance and musicality and the streamer will limit the detail and reduce the noise floor. But, they both make a huge difference… and while you can use a Mac book or PC as a streamer do not let anyone tell you it sounds as good. Some technical people put enormous time and money into a MacBook and futzing with their network to get it close to the sound quality of the streamer. A streamer, like Aurrender is a piece of high end audio equipment. You plunk the heavy beast down and it plays high end audio grade sound quality, no futzing like with a PC.

Generally the streamer itself does everything… your iPad acts as a remote control to the streamer. The streamer box has internal software to directly connect with Qobuz or Tidal. There are other ways of doing it… especially in cheap streamers… you don’t want to do that.

Most streamers have internal memory because for a while (a while ago) storing ripped files was a thing. Now with Qobuz and Tidal, these are reliable and of equal quality to any other media.

You can actually purchase albums from Qobuz and download them to your streamer. Also, more or less something of no value any more. I have my ripped library on my streamer just in case my internet goes out. I have used those only a couple times in five years.

The streamed files are not actually kept in your library. What is stored is some data (like the album cover and name of album, artist etc… and a link that you do not see to the location of the album on Qobuz. So press the album and the streamer goes off and finds it and plays it.

A good streamer like Aurender will cashe the music before playing so it doesn’t have hiccups and isolates you from your network. This is why you (I do) can use a network extender plugged in next to your streamer and get top notch fidelity.