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Apple TV Streaming Sound Quality vs Streamer?

I am looking for the weak link to improve sound quality.   Seems logical it is the Apple TV as a source.  Would a moderate streamer inside of $1500 make much of a difference when streaming Tidal and the like?  

Current Equipment:
Speaker: Dali Euphonia MS-4
AMP: Modwright KWA 150 SE
Preamp/ DAC: Peachtree Grand Integrated
Source: Tidal / Apple TV
puffbojie
puffbojie OP
50 posts
 
Imo-A cd in my $200 lg blue ray player sounds much better than the Tidal. This is what sparked my feeling that the source was the weakest link. Is a cd always better than streaming? I ask because I think I would be satisfied if a streamer could offer a similar sound quality. 
don_c55
823 posts
 
MQA is 14.4khz just like CD

The quality deference is in the mastering and not anything else IMO.

Sometimes it sounds better, sometimes worse.

roberjerman
2,086 posts
 
Mastering from the original source is the most important factor in SQ! And with streaming and downloads the provenance is never certain, compared to LP's and CD's! Authenticity is given up for convenience! A bad bargain, indeed!
roberjerman
2,086 posts
 
Stick to hard media like LP's and CD's for the best SQ!
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,645 posts
 
On most MQA contents my DAC shows 96 and sometimes 192 rates. And they do sound better than the same music when played using my CD player through the same DAC. The rest of the system is a constant.
So streaming can sound better than CD and in my system does most of the time.
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