Sound Quality of red book CDs vs.streaming


I’ve found that the SQ of my red book CDs exceeds that of streaming using the identical recordings for comparison. (I’m not including hi res technology here.)
I would like to stop buying CDs, save money, and just stream, but I really find I enjoy the CDs more because of the better overall sonic performance.
 I stream with Chromecast Audio using  the same DAC (Schiit Gumby) as I play CDs through.
I’m wondering if others have had the same experience
128x128rvpiano

Showing 2 responses by rbstehno

Expensive CD player vs. the cheapest streaming setup you can implement and you are wondering why your cd sounds better? Your current setup couldn’t support the best hires/DSD/MQA streaming services that are available. Also, when was the best sounding sacd inferior to cd redbook? Sure there were some sacd recordings that were just cd’s reripped but most were superior.
IMO, trying to get your chromecast audio/toslink up to a high standard for streaming is like putting lipstick on a pig.
Get rid of USB, reclockers for your usb, and toslink, go with straight Ethernet with a fiber internet connection, get tidal hifi with MQA and you will be selling your CD player. Rip all of your cd’s to a server and use Roon for your GUI interface and you will be wondering why you waited so long to do this.
I also used minimserver and upnp for my prior music servers and Roon is head over heals better than either. I still use an Auralic Mini for a music server in my living room setup. When I use Auralic’s DS Lightning software, I have to use minimserver for my ripped/purchased music off my server. Once I could use Roon on the Auralic Mini, I stopped using minimserver with no looking back.