Ripping CDs

Borrow one? Although it is time consuming.

I had to look up your system again. Nice. But your streamer is no where near the quality of much of your system. If you get a much better streamer, there should be no sound advantage to ripped files. Then they are no longer important.  It is really time consuming.

Any old PC will do. No use in adding the function to a streamer. Everything from iTunes, purchased or free software will do it. Switch output format to FLAC before ripping.

I would suggest always putting the max into a single function streamer. With a little effort and money ripped files become irrelevant unless your internet is down. That has happened to me once in the last five years.

@linnvolk 

Yes, you are correct, I am assuming most all content is available. Most is. However, what happened to me, and I suspect what happens to most folks is that once the sound quality difference disappears and you have access to more than a million albums your focus shifts from playing the really restricted amount of music you have collected… carefully chosen to sound the very best because of it’s high cost, to exploring new music, enjoying thousands of albums you never knew existed.

When my streaming sound quality rose to my other sources, I think I called up the albums I owned for about a week, before I noticed an album I had never heard before from the same group while searching. Then I would remember a band I did not own. Then I started to just look at new albums, then choose genera and listen to new stuff. Very quickly I seldom would listen to the old stuff I owned. And when I did, if it isn’t there, there is a high definition version of one of their other albums or a better band. 
 

High quality streaming changes everything. 

@linnvolk 

Yes great opportunities for listening.

I find your counterpoint logical but very very unlikely. The cat is out of the bag. I can’t see a way it gets put back in. The world is going digital… it has to, we cannot afford the resources to do physical. Nor can I see single stream   all (Qobuz… Tidal, etc) being broken up into factions… there is too much economy of scale.