CD Player vs. music streaming

I just got a Bluesound node 2i to replace some 45 year old pre amp power amp which still work.  In comparison to CD it is a close call.  I know the Little Blusound is not in the league of Naim, but I can say I am very impressed with the little guy.  I have a small town home so 60w is plenty on my custom DIY tower speakers.  I would expect SA CD to sound better but you are correct about some things.  I am over 60 years of age, love streaming because all my favorite play lists follow me everywhere. I use Deezer at present which is working great.  My cell phone for the Jeep, Bluesound from home. Wireless for UTube or other sites off the phone.  I am new to all of this but my two cents is that Streaming is great. I can have the same music all through out the home.  Alexa can even play on it. When I leave this world my grand kids will decorate their rooms with my CDs and use them for nerf gun target practice. I have about 60 million songs and even pod casts ready for me on Dezzer where ever I go! (Exept heaven)

Some knowledge can go a long way.  This article is one of many that discusses some of the science that is shrouded by the hype, commercialism and misinformation available on the internet...caveat emptor.

Don't be fooled by expensive streamers.  The BlueSound Node2i is great sounding.  I would suggest using TIDAL and connecting the Blue Sound to take advantage of MQA.

I think the days of playing CD's are coming to an end.  It is way more convenient to play music by using either a cell phone or computer to access your music without having to get up to change a CD.  You would also have to spend a fortune on high res CD's compared to just spending $20/month.  I would suggest hard wiring the BlueSound using CAT6 cable.  I just wish Bluesound offered video so it would be possible to view concerts.  I will bet they will be coming out with this option in the near future.

Hello guys a few points on this thread.

People here have to stop lauding the Bluesound Node as a high end solution, yes the Node sounds great for a $550.00 streamer and has an excellent gui and operating system, however, in a really good system it is not going to cut it as a dac or a streamer.

We consider the first real step at high end sound quality to be the Lumin D2 which in our tests far outperformed the Cambridge 851N.

Tatyanah, listen to an Innous Server particularly the Zen or Zenith the improvement in sound quality over either direct streaming or using a lower quality streamer is very noticable.

Mroeturner, you should try to get a demo of the Innous servers particularly the Zenith you will notice a very large improvement over the Nucleus. The Innous servers are far more technologically advanced in terms of noise reduction over the Nucleus  units, the Zen, Zenith and Statement models also feature an incoming and outgoing set of ethernet noise filters,  to keep noise out of the unit and to transmit a better quality ethernet signal to a streaming dac.

We have been playing in this arena for many years, a good server or a good streamer/dac will outperform a CD player easily, that is not saying there aren’t fantastic CD players but in all of our tests including a one of the world’s best CD players the T+A PDP 3000 is bettered by T+A’s stand alone reference dac with an Innous server or the Formula or the Ligtht Harmonic Davinci dual dac, these setups challenge the best in analog for a sense of palbability and pureness of midrange naturalness.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ