Streaming vs Physical Media


I have a decent digital front end with a Lumin U1 Mini (w/ external power supply) and a Border Patrol SE dac.  Have some CDs, but no transport.  Would a CD transport sound better than a streamer of similar quality/price?  

mdonda

Showing 1 response by rbstehno

Have the CD player try to access music from tidal or Qobuz. I’ve been streaming for over 15 years, got rid of my $3000 Classe CD player 14 years ago, and still have a Sony SACD player that hasn’t played a disc in 10 years.

I have tried all different types of servers/streamers and the best 3rd party streamer I found was the Auralic over the Lumin and Aurender, and the Auralic software is still much better than the other 2. I sold the Auralic years ago. The only reason I would buy a 3rd party server/streamer would be if I would ever need to use usb to the dac, which I will never do again.

Since I keep my server 100ft away from my listening room, the main thing that matters most is the software that reads/accesses the music, which can be Roon, Aurdivana, or a couple others. My current setup sounds much better than the Auralic did and the Auralic sounded better than the others I auditioned, but to get this improvement, I also got rid of my usb dac and went to a high quality dac with Ethernet and i2s input