“Done carefully a digital system (now ah days) garners tiptop sound indistinguishable from other sources.”
This is not my experience, yet. I freely admit my system is not the most resolving, but the Node N130 with a decent linear power supply and good cabling does an admirable job as a server, and allows my DAC to shine on both low and high res files.
Just this week I was part of a comparison with a few others of different versions of the same cuts played as vinyl or digital redbook and high res files streamed and from a flash drive. The system was Naim NSC 222, NAP 250, Rega Planar 8 with a very good Rega MC cartridge and Rega MC phonostage, ATC SCM 19 speakers and a REL subwoofer, with quality cabling and power conditioning. Streaming implementation is through a mesh system with good Ethernet cables running from the mesh endpoint straight to the NSC 222. This system is highly resolving.
The general outcome of the comparison was that digital sounded good, and as a rule, files played from a flash drive sounded better than same cuts streamed at the same resolution. For streamed or for files played from local storage, the difference between different resolution versions of the same cuts played in same format did not sound that different. Vinyl cuts generally sounded better than high res files played from the flash drive, but not always.
I went home after this comparison and did a similar comparison with my rig and reconfirmed that the difference between low and high res digital files played from local storage has shrunk compared with previous iterations. This is also my experience for my work system that employs a new Node Nano, which is a remarkable value.
I have not tried a very high quality implementation of a streaming front end hard wired from the street to my streamer with an audiophile router, filter and Ethernet cables and very high end streamer with my system. But my experience in the comparison this week and in previous sessions with other high end gear is that streaming off the Internet doesn’t match playing files from local drives. If I upgraded my source and DAC, my feeling is that at this point I would very likely still play files from a local server for critical listening. Perhaps I am stubborn, or inadequately experienced, or both. Dunno.
kn