I Sold my CD Player!!! Streaming sounds so incredible!!!
Several years ago, was the very first time I had the opportunity to hear a very high end, high quality, streaming audio system. Once I heard it, I was smitten, and I knew right then and there that this was me all the way!!! I was absolutely blown away by the handy convenience of the little iPad (or cell phone) used as remotes to control the otherworldly access to a virtual ocean of music via Tidal, Qobuz or downloads. I immediately recognized this new technology as the future of my own audio system, especially with all the new hi rez stuff out there that was now made available. I gave up vinyl when CD came on the scene (yes, I'm an old guy), and, now, perhaps, it would be finally time to retire my beloved CD player. Long story short: What put my streaming audio system over the top, as far as sound quality is concerned, was the assemblage of these core streaming devices-----( #1) A superb DAC, by Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty streaming DAC (#2) An outstanding music server, by Roon Nucleus Plus (#3) An outstanding Audio Switch, by Pakedge Devices (#4) Excellent Ethernet Cables, by Shunyata Sigma. I also utilize numerous other tweaks and filters that further purify the streaming audio signal within my room and audio system. At this juncture in life, I am just mesmerized by the combination of sound quality and convenience that I get through my streaming audio system. I'm also happy and pleased to report that, I don't miss my old beloved CD player one bit. Happy listening.
@fpomposo not sure what is wrong but there should be little or no discernable difference between your ripped and streamed sourcefiles. Indeed you need a high quality hard wired input to your streamer. but my streamed music quickly revealed weakneses in my CD playing system and I had to upgrade my transport. Maybe you are happy the way you are doing it and that is fine, just thought I'd point this out in case you want to work on it. Jerry |
@carlsbad2 not sure what your getting at but your statement that there should be no discernable difference between local ripped files and streamed is incorrect. When I listen to a CD at WAV resolution it’s anywhere from 500 to 800 megabytes of data, if you stream the same album it is going through lots of compression algorithms and you are downloading maybe 50 to 80 megabytes. My local source file is traveling from the SSD hard drive in my Aurender a few inches to the USB output then to my DAC, when you stream a album it is going from a server farm somewhere in the world through thousands of miles of fiber and copper lines through multiple computers and devices in the chain of your ISP, then to your modem, then to your router, then another run of patch cord coppper cable and heavily compressed and decompressed many times along the way. Proclaiming that they should have no discernable difference doesn’t make it so, it’s very very obvious by using the ear test that uncompressed local files are superior to Qobuz streamed music, and I will admit Qobuz sounds pretty good but not even close to local files on the HDD. I recommend you get a streamer with onboard hard drive and hear for yourself , I love my Aurender but there are others that have onboard storage.
PS - My Aurender is hard wired, Aurender doesn’t even have Wi-Fi you can only hard wire it and I use a high quality shielded Cat7 patch cord to go to the double isolated LAN port on the Aurender. I do plan to get a audiophile network switch at some point and maybe try a audiophile expensive patch cord, but I haven’t spent the money on that just yet. |
Roon finds 2 versions on both Tidal and Qobuz in about a second. Since using Roon, I’m buying and playing more vinyl than ever. Although 75% of my listening is streaming simply for convenience. |
@fpomposo Sounds like you don't believe in FLAC. I've never used an Aurender and I hope they don't have conversion problems making FLAC back into WAV. I upgraded my Innuos with onboard drive and a nice ripper to a grimm with onboard drive. I don't use the drive much since it offers no audio benefits. Sounds like you really believe your WAVs are superior so that is what you are hearing. Enjoy the music. Jerry |
