2. digital
  3. 153281-91515

CD Player vs. music streaming

Dear audiophiles:

I am in the cross road for the media choice.  My CD player suffered from abnormal tray movement and consider to replace a new one (maybe the 2nd hand one).  But on last Sunday, I paid a visit to the audio show and find out there are showing many streaming player of the famous brands with  the price range of US$ 5000~20,000.  I feel the sound is not bad with short listening. 

I am thinking about my situation once more, if I buy a HI-Fi CD player, the price might equal to the audio streamer.  Then, if I choose the CD player, I would keep on buying CD. But if I give up CD player and replace it with a audio streamer, my expense might be the monthly subscription expense which cost a CD or so.  Besides,
my kids have no interest in classical music appreciation. There is no meaning for me to keep on buying CD. When I  am passed away, the CD are useless...without not penny. 

Under such kind of   consideration, should I stay in CD player or should I switch to music streamer. 
Any good opinion?
faust168
joshfilm
70 posts
 
@audiotroy 
i recently tried an Innuos Statement in my system and I found that the same track ripped from cd by the Innous significantly outperformed the same track streamed via the Innuos (via Roon/Tidal cd-quality). Did you not find the same? (I was not able to compare to the cd playing direct)

i would think this is the greatest reason for the OP to go for this kind of solution.... get extra value from his CD collection while reaping rewards of streaming. 
rwwear
2,848 posts
 
I enjoy CDs myself but I like to put my music on my computer using JRiver. I also store much of my music in FLAC format onto usb thumb drives. I can put hundreds of albums on a single drive and play them back in the car and I can plug them into my Oppo player and play them back with the artwork and song titles displayed on the big screen. It's very easy to skip back and forth in seconds instead of having to get up and change a disc. Plus the sound is great.
ajay555's avatar
ajay555
12 posts
 
Most folks are giving up on CD players. But here is the deal - CD players will always sound better than streaming for same or less price. What is important are to get upgraded feets, with high end power cable and burn the music to blank gold MSFL CDs. Those 3 steps are the secret sauce for superior CD transports-
I compared Innous with the new MSB descrete ($13k) vs my Hegel with the 3 step upgrade ($6.5k + gold discs). The streaming option had wider soundstage but the CD hands down had more accurate sound and timing.

ketchup
688 posts
 
While I don’t have experience with Innuos server/streamers, I do with Aurender and Auralic as I own units from both companies and have been able to do A/B comparisons against the Node 2.  No contest.
@mgrif104 Did you use the same DAC when comparing the Aurender, Auralic, and Node 2?  If so, which DAC did you use for the test and can you let me know what was better about the Aurender and Auralic?  What models of the Aurender and Auralic do you have? Thanks!
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,599 posts
 
Ketchup are you incredulous that an Auralic or Aurender server is besting the Node? 

In our tests the better the data stream the better the sound to the dac. 

We have tested the original Auralic Aries vs the Aurender and the Aurender was far better

We  feel that the Innous are a fantastic choice due to their implimentation of Roon, great sound quality, continuous firmware upgrades, and near total reliablity and ease of use.

Many people who compare these servers are shocked just how much better sound out of a digital data stream can be created when you minimize jitter and timing related distortions from the data stream.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous dealers
More to discover