The Grace Digital Link provides "Good Enough" and maybe more. Anyone spending more than the $179 asking price to stream is tossing away money imo. If you want hi-res, as MC pointed out, listen to an LP....its where it's at if you want all your "inner detail". Streaming is a convenience, that's it! It is not for critical listening.
Is Pretty Good Good Enough? Listening Habits In The World Of Streaming Services.
I'm a recent subscriber to Tidal and Amazon Unlimited. The sound quality of the cd quality music is surprisingly good. I find myself listening to more music because of it.
I've also found myself in a situation when I come across a very familiar recording that I find it missing some of the inner details of the recording that I'm very familiar with....overall, the recording is good, but I noticed the missing elements. Though I found it not as good as it sounds on my cd player, it was good enough that I didn't stop the song and went and got my cd and played it. In other words, I settled for pretty good. Interestingly, as I moved up the chain in the world of audio, it was always in pursuit of better equipment to extract better sound from the recording. I was always looking for better than 'good enough'. Well, 'good enough' has gotten a lot better than it used to be...and much more convenient.
Sadly, my critical listening time with my cd player and turntable is a lot less these days because of the streaming services. I've just started to fiddle around with burning wav files of my cd's to a hard drive to make copies of those recordings where nothing but the original file will do.
How have your listening habits changed since the higher resolution services have arrived?