Why Purchase A CD Player or Transport ?

@rockysantoro

What is your system? There is a place to show it under your ID. This is really helpful to see where you are coming from. What streamers have you tried? 

@jafant 

I love your system venue… so clean. You have lots of players, what are you using to stream? 

I have had very close relationships with three dealers over the last fifty years.
 

My current dealer has been my friend for twenty years. I consider my current system a collaborative effort. We both love my system. He has brought over equipment (like $20K+ components) to see how they sound to evaluate if he wants to carry the line. We have very much the same musical values although he sells to many people with different values.
 

He has lent me a pair of Audio Research 160m mono-blocks ($32K)… for the last eight months, so far (I own a Audio Research 160s) for me to enjoy. He comes over for an afternoon every couple months to take the afternoon off. He has instructions to sell my system and give the proceeds to my partner when I die. 
 

While I have spent thousands of hours researching and doing comparisons of equipment… components, cables, power cords… this got me up to speed to talk with my dealer… who lives this stuff day and night… for decades. We can talk as equals and learn from each other… fantastic to talk to someone with such in depth knowledge… 

Ok… 150… in a couple days, still must have taken some time. 
 

i went to the vinyl store yesterday… it is still fun. Even though I listen to streaming 98% of the time.

OP,

You ripped all your CDs in two days? Either you only have a few, or you may have inadvertently ripped them to a compressed low resolution format. I don’t remember how long it takes… but I generally have high performance equipment and it takes forever. 

@vonhelmholtz 

Your decision sounds reasonable. Certainly getting rid of the big pile of disk drives. I have been in IT most of my career… so I have about 50tb in storage… not including a bunch of source disks laying around. 1) my primary PC (14TB), 2) NAS 14TB… and 3) backup Drobo (16tb) (USB connect). I try to maintain 2 backups.

In my experience differences in sound quality between CD, stored files, and streaming is entirely contingent on your component choices. I have extensive experience since I bought one of the first high end CD player that was released shortly after the CD was released. I constantly tried new technologies as the became available… stored files on drives, solid state drives, network attachable storage, and different streaming configurations. 
 

I am currently giving away all my CDs and relying exclusively on Aurender streamers. Best sound ever.

My streaming usually sounds better than CDs, or the same if in the same resolution. But Qobuz has half a million high resolution albums. I would take the money you were going to invest in a CD player and upgrade your streamer… or DAC… or preamp. Whatever your weakest link is. I am giving away all my CDs.

With a good streamer and DAC streaming can match or exceed the quality of vinyl.

Also. Once streaming is at a real audiophile level, and with millions of albums at your disposal… at least for me, the focus changed from laser focus on the very best recordings of a very few artists to a vastly expanding array of recordings and genera of music… something not sounding good… move on. There are thousands of incredibly well recorded, high resolution albums available. I also found all sorts of albums I did not know about from artists I love… no extra charge.

The more thoughtfully applied funds dedicated to as few components in your system the better it will sound… the more captivating, musical and rewarding. I recommend concentrate on the essential components. CDs are simply computer files on a optical disk… as opposed to located on a disk drive, server, or streamed. Don’t waste money on a optical disk reader and DAC in a box.