To Stream or Not to Stream

What kind of music do you listen to? Almost all popular stuff is available for streaming. But some users who enjoy a deep collection of classical music often complain about searching for stuff via streaming. Burning classic CDs also can cause cataloging and artwork cover issues…

Love streaming convenience and all-world access, and highly recommend jumping in to anyone who has not, but for me, ripped CD source in the memory on my Innuos Zenith Mk3 is cleaner and fuller sounding than even hi res streaming. Streaming still great, ripped CDs just better-I listen to a lot of vocals,   Other gear:  Hegel H390, Dali Rubicon 6’s, REL T/9x. Qobuz user. 

cycles2
You may find that many of the 7K CDs you have are offered in hi-rez on Qobuz. Once you listed to a hi-rez version of a CD you own, you’ll likely not listen to it again.

Same album different re-issues
 Sorry but no, not when they give you the later compressed re-issues it’s not.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Traveling+Wilburys&album

Cheers George

@mijostyn  "Streaming is for background music only. In no way shape or form is it ready for serious listening". 

If you're going to make a general statement like this, you need to let us know the streaming equipment you use.

Using Qobuz, I find streaming on my dCS Rossini Streamer/DAC every bit as good as my Ayre C-5xe CD player, with the possible exception of playing SACD discs on the Ayre. But if the same album is offered in hi-rez format on Qobuz, the gap is minimal and likely not noticeable via a blindfold listening session. I do use fiber optic isolation from the copper Ethernet cable which is well worth the investment.

You may find that many of the 7K CDs you have are offered in hi-rez on Qobuz. Once you listed to a hi-rez version of a CD you own, you'll likely not listen to it again.

Innuos Statement into Kitsune Halo May DAC. Set it and forget it and let ’er rip.

As with midareff1, I too, have the Cambridge CXNv2 streamer and the Benchmark DAC3b. Great combination!
‘Very happy with streaming even though I have about 5k CDs and 2k records.  Never thought streaming could match the SQ of CDs.  But incredibly, my CDs have become obsolete because the sound quality is identical! (What a waste of money and space.)
Records and SACDs sound better, but the convenience of streaming wins out.

I have a library of about 700 CDs.  Maybe 5 are not available between Qobuzz and Tidal not to mention thousands of internet radio stations, many CD quality, some even better.  The exposure to new music from streaming radio stations and the ability to then access the performers or bands discography without leaving your chair is amazing.
Remember, digital sound quality starts at the wall plug.
Cambridge CXNv2 >>> Benchmark DAC 3b.

I upgraded from an Aurender to Roon Nucleus+ to Innuos Zen mini with external power supply running as Roon Core.  Roon crushes Aurender’s conductor controls and Aurender is not Roon compatible.  Though it shouldn’t need to be repeated… today’s High Resolution providers such as Qobuz and Tidal now can eclipse CD redbook standards and anyone using lossy compression formats is more than a decade behind the times.

Jump in and enjoy!

The single best thing about streaming and listening to my local collection is Roon.

I could not agree more, thyce.

Jump in with both feet and I promise you will wish you had done it sooner.  But keep your CDs, they are fun to look at and you likely have many that have not been mastered to digital (yet).  I ripped about a thousand of my CDs before I discovered Tidal and Qobuz which both have better sounding Hi-rez versions.  Other than my rare CDs, I wonder if it was time well spent, but I do have a nice safe backup copy of a thousand of my CDs.  One nice thing about ripping your CDs is that it forces you to go through your collection and find the CDs you forgot you owned, which is nice.  I have Qobuz because I like the sound slightly better than Tidal and I really enjoy buying and downloading albums from Qobuz, but either sound great.   The single best thing about streaming and listening to my local collection is Roon.  Roon has shown me so many artists that I never heard of but now love, and it has many other great features.  Roon allows me to easily stream music from mine, and most importantly, my wife's laptop or phone, or whatever we have at hand to any room in my house because I bought cheap Roon compatible streamers to plug into audio gear in every room except the main listening room which got the good stuff.  Guests would think we own an expensive whole house sound system if I didn't ramble on and on about Roon.  Go for it!  You won't regret it.

@mijostyn.  “Streaming is for background music only. In no way shape or form is it ready for serious listening. ”
Like all things in audio, it depends. But if you choose equipment carefully  for high fidelity. That statement is categorically wrong. It was probably true at some point… 10 years ago… 7 years ago. I am not sure… it would be hard to know unless all you did was audio review. Depends on the level of performance and cost. But streaming quality can equal and exceed the sound quality of CD and definitely be well within the audiophile performance envelope.

unless you have a well into five digits $ analog front end, anyone who says streaming doesn’t sound excellent (by an experienced hifi enthusiast standard) and fully comparable to analog just hasn’t done it right

statements to this effect speaks more of the person saying it... stuck in their ways, closed mind, too lazy to try and experience what the new stuff has to offer, clinging onto wishful, out of date beliefs

eos

Streaming is just one more arrow in the quiver.  It doesn't disqualify you from being an "audiophile".

Yes, the sound quality of my turntable is noticeably better than streaming.  Yes, when I want to listen intently, the majority of that listening is done with vinyl.  

On the other hand, the cost/performance and selection that streaming delivers is hard to beat.  The music I discover streaming, often leads to vinyl purchases.  And contrary to the beliefs of some, it can sound really good.  There are a lot of variables, the quality of the recording, mastering, etc., file quality, how that file gets to your streamer/dac, and the DAC itself.

Streaming leads to vinyl purchase that are sometimes disappointing because they were made from the digital copy and poorly pressed onto the vinyl which is warped and has a lot of ticks and pops and takes up a lot more space in my house than the digital version.  A lot of new vinyl is crap, and a lot of good old vinyl is hard to find and expensive.

For me, it's not an either/or proposition and both formats have their pluses and minuses.

I also have a lot of CD's and have ripped a good many of them.  You don't need a fancy box to do that, your computer should be able to do that and using your computer makes it easy to make a backup copy.  I rip my CD's to an external hard drive using foobar2000 and backup that drive to another external drive and also to the cloud.  Just share the hard drive on your network and you can access it with a number of apps.  I use both the Lumin app and BubbleUPnP.

Streaming is for background music only. In no way shape or form is it ready for serious listening. Even streaming off your own system is problematic. Playing Hi Res files directly is fine. Just subject to the same variability all recorded music is. To be an audiophile one has to be a collector of music. The two are inseparable. 
IMHO streaming is for people who like music just not enough to collect it, who are not serious about their systems or know what they are missing.  

Many thanks for all of your responses imparting insightful advice and recommendations... 

Cheers,
Lou

streaming only gives you all the recorded music in the world at your fingertips... no big deal really 🤔

Two benefits for me is the ability to learn about new music, and second, one doesn't have to listen to the whole CD or album, just the songs you like. 

Just do it. So much already said. Access, excellent sound, ease of use, and did I say access? Access to so much content. I listen to all kinds of stuff that I never did before. And I only play CDs in the car. I've given away and/or sold many already. I've no desire to rip CDs. I may rip the few that are really important to me that aren't on Tidal or Qobuz, but really, just no desire to rip, just desire to listen. Amazing all the CDs I have and they really don't mean much to me anymore, even the out of print or one-of-a-kind stuff. The streaming is great, jump right on in.

Certainly I understand the symbolism physical representations of music mean to some, for those people the monopolization of music as commodity will mean something lost. And I also understand growing commoditization of everything undermines our very humanity.

This is likely inevitable evolution of capitalism, commodifying every possible thing means more possible avenues of profit. And limiting and/or minimizing ownership ensures an endless profit avenue. Unfortunately, the outliers don't generally steer evolution of societies. In the realm of technological innovation, Luddites don't win.

Yes, I can perceive a future where rental music monopolizes, I think we're already to point where majority of music only released via streaming platform. We'll likely not even need individually owned music playback equipment in future. Every single thing we consume will be endless revenue stream for others. The ownership of that revenue stream will also continue to consolidate.

I don’t feel nostalgic about being freed from listening to what I purchased and physicaly posses. A little time with the freedom from needing to physically possessed music and I started exploring more kinds of music and revisiting music much less frequency. Being physically invested in music causes an unnatural condition of listening to the same stuff over and over… because you own it. 

sns850, I haven’t looked into yet, but I’ll wager that like today, people in the 30’s and 40’s received radio and its broadcasts of music as a godsend of convenience and economy, compared with having to physically go to concerts or buy music to play at home,(sheets, rolls, 78’s, etc). The world of music was laid at the feet of the hoi polloi, and it no longer only belonged to the rich. That new massification of music, back then, ushered in a tidal wave (pun intended) of new consumers of music. Great, a further democratization of art. Let me just say this: today when audiophiles seek out and treasure whatever can be recovered from the physical collections of those times, I rarely hear someone pine for the radio broadcasts. Why, well maybe because the great majority of it was used primarily to sell soap, and was made unlistenable by growing and annoying commercialization. So, do you want to guess at what eventually happens with streaming? Don’t think they’ll do that? Don’t think they’ll demand more and more to consume their product? Those music files you cherish are commodities you don’t actually possess. In the long run the music and its delivery system are just conduits that can and will be leveraged to harvest more compliant consumers. I’m not naive. We audiophiles already are big consumers, some of the biggest. Records, CDs, expensive electronic equipment, rooms to correct, construct and display our "stuff". We have bathed in the consumptive pool. But the difference is we possess, own, collect, trade, borrow, swap and archive these consumables. In effect, we have remade their products, we have remade them in own images, expressions, and presentations to others. It’s no crime, or bad per se, that thanks to streaming music is now as ubiquitous as it is, that more people can more easily and, for now, somewhat cheaply, enjoy it in the highest quality. No, I’m not down on the merits of streaming high quality music. Like you, I want the music first. The "but" my friend, is when you leave behind the physical archiving of your physical collection, you’ll be leaving a tradition and nature of collecting in a unusual way: a rite of human selection, curiosity and creativity in the acquisition of the best examples of human musical endeavors, the work of audiophilia, that circumvents the purely commercial aspect of the experience. That’s what will disappear when everyone, I mean everyone, is just sitting in front of nothing but sound emanating from God knows where.

Audiodidact, streaming doesn't have to be a case of throwing away the baby with the bath water. I have well over 2500 vinyl, over 3500 cd and way more streams on playlists and favorites. Physical cd's not missed, small format lessened intrinsic value. And yes, an extremely large proportion of my perceived value is in the music, not the format or physical possession. Nearly all my feelings or emotions are aroused when listening to actual music, the amount of vinyl I own is sufficient to meet all my needs for physical media.

I love streaming Tidal.  Their library is huge and the sound quality of high.  I haven’t used CD’s for years.  You will enjoy streaming and won’t look back.

I found the best combo for Qobuz and Tidal streaming : Aqua Formula xHD Rev 2 DAC + Aqua LinQ streamer paired with a fanless Roon Rock NUC and a top flight switch like my Paul Pang Quad switch.If one can afford this setup if will be very difficult to beat even at CH Precision prices.

audi-owe
To Stream or Not to Stream
(have a collection in excess 7k CD’s).

Forget it, it’s midfi at best.
Get a good Hard Drive setup to copy those precious 7k of CD’s. Get good CD transport and R2R Dac and then play either.

Forget streaming/downloads, even the best companies use later compressed re-issues/re-masters of the earlier uncompressed albums.
They’re good for ear-phones, Ipods, Car audio, dinner music etc where compression is ok to have, because it’s all one level of volume, so background noise isn’t so obtrusive during quite parts, because there aren’t any. (if there’s no quite, there can be no loud)

EG: https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=the+traveling+wilburys&album

Listen to the difference, (compare 1 to 3 they’re at the same "average level") no.3 has no drive or punch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ&ab_channel=MattMayfieldMusic

And today new stuff is very compressed also, even the CD’s.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year/desc

Cheers George

Wow, how the mighty have fallen.  Streaming, or rental music as I call it, has won the day here at last.  Well, you stream, I stream...we all...you get it.  It's convenient.  Its cheap. It sounds as good or better than whatever that was we were doing for the past 100 years.  Good riddance to that.  And don't ask me which platform I stream from because who cares?  Like, is there  really a  quality issue between them? Really?   But who am I to say.  Maybe we're not headed towards being OCD about which digital platform the unwashed ignorantly chose: "Oh..Tidal, are you still using that?"  Crazy, I thought we were not just consumers of music but archivists, preservationists and curators of rare physical antiquities.  No?  You mean everyone, anyone, now has everything at the tips of their fingers? A phone. A dac. Some ear-bud-thingies.  Good to go.  But there's a book (remember those?): "Dust and Grooves".  Inside are photos and stories of who we are, or were.   It's not just about the vinyl (although I personally drool over it), and not just about the music, but about the people who are the keepers of the flame, so to speak.  Get the book and take a long last look at what very well may be the last of us.  

I believe the Aurrender is not compatible with ROON. So I was never interested in that brand. I have heard it and used it on a tablet when I was demoing Luxman gear. I like ROON better for streaming (maybe old dog learning something new). I also use killer ROON features like Convolution filters, tagging, multi-zone, grouped streams (for comparing gear) which I am not sure Aurrender supports.

I would not waste my time ripping your disks. I have ripped my disks  a few times starting around 2005 using dbPoweramp. The reason I would not rip my disks if I started today is that streaming services will have all these disks available for you.

In the event, that a disk in not available on the steaming services you can always play your CD. So I would keep my CD/SACD player and get a ROON compatible streaming solution. I have a 20 year old Sony SACD player that I love to listen to still.

I have 4 ROON READY streaming instances that serve the streming function of the Aurrender, 2 of them are Sonore OpticalRendu, 1 microRendu, and a Network streamer built into an integrated amp (Ethernet based). I stream all day using ROON. I cannot say I have had any difficult issues even though my setup is very complicated. Most ROON setups are rather simple and rock solid.

Agreed do not delay, jump in with both feet. Unless you have particular tastes, once you have Roon/Tidal you do not need your own music library. Even better is if your favorite albums are available on Tidal Hi-Rez, you will wonder how you ever lived with red book limited sound quality.

Unless you have rare cds, good streaming through Roon will make your cd collection obsolete.  Liner notes still cool, though.

You can also look for a DAC that supports upnp/dlna and run a UPNP server very easily in windows/Linux/Mac.  You can stream your CD rips and other mp3s.   BubbleUPNP app can cast to various renderers/dacs including Sonos.  It also recognizes my Boulder 866.  And it supports tidal and qobuz. And it's mostly free :)

I have n Aurender paired with a Schiit Yggdrasil GS, and stream Quboz and Tidal. Highly recommend this combo!

I started a few years ago with an Aurender N100 and the internal Dac in my integrated.  I started with Tidal, and eventually added Qobuz to get an even wider variety of music.  The sound quality is excellent, and having access to such a range of music literally at your fingertips is wonderful. I have also started to accumulate digital downloads and ripped CDs and SACDs, which are stored on my Aurender, mostly of stuff that is not on the streaming services.  I am very happy with my choice.  Regarding your DAC, the Yggdrasil is a nice unit (a friend of mine has one, and it sounds quite nice).  The only thing you need to consider is whether either DSD or MQA is important to you.  If not, the Yggy is a good choice.

If you are going into streaming, get a good quality dac, that's the most important piece. You don't need a dedicated streamer, been there. Get Roon, run it on a Linux or Mac and use any input on your dac as long it isn't usb or toslink or digital coax

Great advice here.  I had the same issue, and thought I really needed to rip my CDs.  So I bought an Innuos Zenith MK.3 ripper/streamer with 1tb of storage and subscribed to Qobuz.  I find that I listen to those albums on Qobuz that I discovered through  Roon much more often than the ripped CDs.  None of my CDs were rare or hard to come by, so all of them can be found on Qobuz.  Comparing the two in my system, I cannot hear a difference between a high resolution 96/24 Quobuz tune and my ripped CDs.  Often, the Quobuz HR tune sounds better.  I do, however, have quality cables, etc., but ripped the CDs a while ago on a Innuos Zen mini and stored them on an old Toshiba portable hard drive using a standard computer usb cord before transferring them to the Zenith with the same cord.  That process may account for the SQ difference == not sure, but I am enjoying Roon on my system.  I agree, if your CD collection is not particularly rare or otherwise unlikely to be found on Qobuz or Tidal, there is no need limit your search to those streamers that include rippers and storage.

Unless you like your CDs. Much stuff unavailable to streaming. Some artists won’t do it. If your music is common don’t bother but download a bunch for when the internet is not available. Never take it for granted.
Anyway streaming IS NOT a question.
Ripping is easier on a computer, unless you ain't got one.

I highly recommend Aurender streamers. I think to combination of the Yggi and the Aurender streamer is a good one. I have two Aurender Streamers 100N and W20SE. 
Personally I recommend not ripping your CDs. I would focus investing in components to maximize the streaming fidelity. I have 2K CDs that are used as acoustic wall diffusers and dust collectors. My CD playback is indistinguishable from streaming. If you get to that point there is no point in spending hundreds of hours ripping disks. Qobuz will open up the world of music far beyond your collection and much of it in higher resolution. 
So my recommendation is to get the best streamer you can afford (Aurender great choice)… having a little local storage on it is OK, but don’t waste money on a ripper. The sound you get will be the result of the streamer and DAC. Yggi is a great value for the money. 
I assume you are using a CD player now with an internal DAC? Or are you using a CD transport and the Yggi?

I'm "all in" with streaming, so much so that I hardly ever listen to any other source.

In my case I have a Roon Nucleus Plus server, it's USB into a PS Audio DirectStream DAC, the two pair with each other very nicely.

I have friends who enjoy the Aurender, it's certainly an excellent unit as well.

One thing I find with digital is the quality of the AC power is important in getting the best sound quality.  I also used to have both a Tidal & Qobuz subscription, but dropped Tidal.

The new music to be found is a game changer. Have only been doing it myself for under 2 yrs but we'll worth it.

Do it, it's an absolute game changer.
What components you choose to use are just the details.

I went with the Innuos Mk3 and an Audio Mirror DAC. Loving it!!

As noted above… if for nothing else, the amount of music avail for the $$$ simply cannot be beat. Argue the associated gear and/or service perhaps, but the access is not even a discussion. 

I'm considering jumping into the streaming "waters"

Stop considering and dive in head first ASAP.  Just the access and exposure to worlds of new music makes it more than worth doing — I hardly ever listen to my own CDs anymore — with the high level of convenience being a huge bonus.  I’ve never had more fun listening to music.  I’d only add you might find everything you need in the Innuos Zen Mk3 streamer/server and save yourself a few thousand dollars.  Best of luck. 

If you don't care about DSD.