Why are so many people spending so much money to build “perfect” streaming system?

Interesting how @walkenfan2013 has disappeared from the conversation.  Guess he continues to think that, somehow, streaming is more expensive than other forms of audio playback.

God knows.

@bubba12 

As much as I tout streaming here, I'm not ready to contemplate ditching my other media sources. First off, I just have too much stuff that isn't, and will probably ever be, available on line or over the aether.

Another sticking point is that streaming is dependent on hardware & software that, in my experience, just seems to go bad every so often, often without warning. Every once in a while the laptop I use to  command the streaming festivities just doesn't perform the task, whether it's because it needs a software update or the update I've just downloaded puts my streaming capabilities temporarily out of whack.

Finally, yeah, I do like to gaze at album covers, hold printed opera libretti & lyric sheets in my hands, and gaze at the vintage pictures the liner notes often include. I enjoy reading the technical data, too. Who produced the record? Who was the engineer? Where was it recorded?

when and what where the breakthroughs in digital sound? 2010? what technological breakthrough brought the most improvements?  i would like to see and incremental technological history on how we got here.  was it software i.e. recording techniques, and hardware DAC development and strides made in chip implementation?

@edcyn agree sir. I just sometimes look around at my 5000 records and 5000 cds and wonder IF I could get along without MOST of it. Not ready to do it yet.

Even though I do a lot of streaming, it is NOT part of the argument that you have to give up any other format.  Like others have noted, I have many albums in my local collection that are not available on streaming and never will be -- for example, the ones that weren't commercially available releases. (I spent several years transferring a hundreds of LPs and open reels to digital.)

My system integrates my local collection and my Qobuz account seamlessly -- no problem to play one song or album from my local music and the next one from Qobuz. 

So, suggesting that going to online streaming requires one to discard your existing collection makes no more sense that saying back in the 1970s that you couldn't listen to FM or cassettes if you had a turntable.  If I like the music, I'll take it in any form I can get it.

“Another sticking point is that streaming is dependent on hardware & software that, in my experience, just seems to go bad every so often, often without warning. ”
@edcyn

You been around here long enough to know consumer grade laptops are not the best way to stream music. A modest investment in a dedicated streamer like Node will give much more robust streaming hardware and app interface. And no one is saying you need to ditch the physical media playback, if you choose to stream music :-)

@malibu457 In my estimation implementation of greatly improved ADC in recording studios was responsible for much of digital SQ improvement. For streaming , lossless services.

I've never had a single long term failure with streaming, user error has been occasional issue with custom path I've taken, Plug n play is pretty foolproof these days, needn't be reason for avoiding streaming.

i am also referring to recording decades old, back in the analog days...they sound so much better now either as digital playback or streamed. i would love to read a history of the last four decades of the parallel milestones in both the recording and playback chain. make for a good article for the big magazines and start from the 70’s. what where the breakthrough players and the pioneers behind them. step by step. chip design, implementation, PSU, development of architecture and approaches. a complete holistic survey of the last 50 years of digitals evolution.

Spotify family lo res for research and on the move and then if I love something I get on CD or vinyl (both comparable in quality on my system luckily)

Has cut down purchases for sure ... Some stuff I listen to on training runs ornturbo I would never buy HaHa it's a pace speed thing

Here's a newbie question. Do most streamers allow you to listen to a specific radio station via url? 

Yes on Ifi zs.  A few hundreds of choices. Most plays up to 320kbps mp3 / AAC.  A handful of them play flac but you do not expect the same quality of streaming.  Played with some lags so some people actually think the radio station feature is not working. 

SNS hit it on the nose.... if it weren't for streaming many great artists could and would be missed if you hadn't subscribed to a streaming service. I've spent a lot of money on cds and vinyl and if it hadn't been for streaming, I would never know about many great singers. We spend money on streaming components to make it sound good once we realized what good artist are now available to listen too. That is the short and long of it.