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.              

kennymacc

@irjones 

Streaming is very solid. The worst case you loose your internet connection for a little while and access to the 10 million + albums for a short time. 

@irjones I run NAS in RAID configuration, so 2 HD with identical data, I have backup of these with USB external drive. Chances of three HD failures is virtually nill. And I still have my 3k plus cd's, not worth the hassle of selling and cd's don't take up that much room in any case.

 

And how come you couldn't transfer the HD in dead computer to new computer or at least to an external drive then to new computer? Unless it was infected with virus of OS in old HD corrupted this could work. Still, best to backup to external HD, I always go for at least 2 backups for the music files, ripping 3k plus cd's is time consuming!

Part of the value of using physical media is the rediscovery process. If one has a larger collection (2k+ titles) and spends the time (10 plus hours a week) listening, at least for me part of the enjoyment is combing through and rediscovering titles. That's not easy to do (for me) with streaming....

I agreed until today. Roon was updating and it was taking a while. Vinyl it is. Oh boy, I forgot how great vinyl sounds. I'm not knocking streaming by any means. It does sound incredible, but vinyl, mmmmmmm. 

I have over 5000 CDs, SACDs, XRCDs, blu ray audio and DVD audio discs. 

They are loaded into a number of 400 CD carousel players. I would never part with them. It is like offline streaming. If the internet goes down you will be screwed unless you have ripped all of your CDs. I will be happily listening in my offline digital world!