Two posts that I found informative, on this, neverending subject:
Mikelavigne wrote:
at the entry level it’s a horse apiece.....computers are servers. servers are computers. maybe a dedicated server has slightly less noise, and maybe a better power cord than a sever; but likely your network bandwidth, network switch, ethernet and usb cables will have a greater effect than other choices at this level.
2--mid level dedicated servers will outperform regular computers and laptops since they eliminate much of the peripheral noisy processing duties of the normal computers. there is a clear difference to go dedicated.
3--price no object server levels they far outperform any computer or laptop. but you are talking $20k to $100k for a music server. i own a $76k music server and it is awesome sounding and significantly outperforms my previous $30k+ music server. once i heard the difference i could not 'unhear' it. and took the plunge.
Post from owner and constructor of Mojo Audio
Benjamin from Mojo Audio here.
I just wanted to let you all know that my current reference digital source is a modified Jay’s Audio CD transport.
The time, tune, and harmonic coherency is like nothing I’ve ever heard. And I’ve owned some pretty exotic CD transports
Don’t ask me to explain why, but the best computer audio won’t hold a candle to a proper CD transport. Even those new JCAT XE OCXO clocked USB cards, which has the same type of OCXO clock as the Jay’s CD transport, is not even close.
When I played this for some local audiophiles all their jaws dropped. The sound was so much better than any digital music they ever heard no one ever asked to go back to computer audio for a comparison.
I now consider the best computer audio as background music. The timing and tune are totally messed up. Streaming is worse, but even music played from your music library on an internal SSD is off time and tune.
Seriously. Once you hear it you can’t unhear it. The sound those of you who are real music lovers have been waiting for.
I removed all computers from my main system. If I’m going to warm up my tube amp, I’m going to change CDs from now on.'
So, the answer is 'it depends', (could it be any other) of the level of gear you will use and money that you (or anyone) is ready to invest to 'beat' one or another 'type' of reproduction.
In the same time, the quality of recordings that are streamed is often dubious or unknown and than, the physical media is perhaps the better solution...