I Sold my CD Player!!! Streaming sounds so incredible!!!

Streaming radio station or Fm isn't best for discovering new artists. Between Qobuz and Tidal which I stream over Roon, nearly unlimited music, and Roon radio will play entire catalog of my ripped library, Tidal and Qobuz at random, also suggestions of similar artists when playing individual tracks or albums.

I don't get into sound quality arguments, all can be top notch, and I continue to have very nice vinyl setup, nothing beats having the art and packaging in a larger format. CD's blah for this, don't miss it.

The only thing I don't get is those who continue to exclusively use cd and/or  vinyl with small collections of both. Even with 6k to choose between both formats and virtually all genres I ended up in repeat mode, familiar with everything, no surprises. Finding new great music keeps it fresh!

 I find CDs generally poorly recorded, clipped and way over compressed.  I have over a thousand of them and just don’t like the sound. 

If I had the same experience, I wouldn't bother with CDs either. It's not my experience, though. 

Related story:

The other day I visited my local hifi shop as I often do when passing by.

I was able to connect my iPhone to their network and stream any of “my” music on any of the systems they had set up, At least several dozen different choices there including their reference system running top of the line Mac amplification and Sonus Faber Cremonese ( I think) speakers.

I used Roon Arc to connect remotely to my Roon server at home and streamed to the vendor’s systems using airplay.

Welcome to hifi in the 21st century, year 2024.

With that experience fresh in my mind, I was able to come home and tweak my sound just a tad for the better streaming the same tracks as  at the store  and  using Roon and it’s built-in DSP and a few minor placement adjustments.

My recommendation is to do anything possible to keep up with what modern technology has to offer and avoid merely living in the past and only doing the same things done 40 years ago on the quest for good sound.

Happy listening!

@classicrockfan High end audio is all about musical listening pleasure, so there’s no such thing as a "bad investment." This is fun stuff and should not to be taken so seriously. If whatever audio item you purchase, cables, amps, speakers, etc., regardless of cost, brings you that much closer to audio nirvana, then the purchase was worth every penny, and more. Happy listening

I think a lot has to do with the source of the recording.  When it was mastered , who mastered it…. Etc.   There are many copies of the “same” album when you search. Some are phenomenal, some are pretty bad.  
 

I have a lot of CDs that were AAD recordings and they don’t have compression like many recording today.  Some sound really good .  
 

I love streaming , don’t get me wrong , it totally changed the was I consume new music.  But I like the ritual of CDs and records.