Playing CDs sounds better than Qobuz — dammit


I’ve built a decent HeadFi rig over the past few months and am quite happy with it streaming Qobuz as a source via my iPad/iPhone.  I recently brought my CD player into the rig as there are some reference CDs I need that aren’t available on Qobuz.  Well, I made the mistake of playing some CDs and compared them to Qobuz, and in every case the CD sounds better — specifically a quieter background and more transparency overall.  I’ve got good cables from the dongle out of my iPad to the USB cable that runs to my DAC for streaming, so let’s leave cables out of the discussion for now because I think this goes deeper than that.  Needless to say I’m pretty disappointed right now because I’ve enjoyed not spinning discs over the past year or so and certainly don’t wanna go back to buying CDs again.  Ugh.

So, what I’m thinking is that streaming over WiFi through my iDevices may be the bottleneck.  IF that’s the case and I need to up my streaming game, what would be the cheapest way to go to overcome the bottleneck?  My thought is going hardwired (which I can do) to something like an iFi Stream or maybe a ProJect Streambox, but just wondering if that’d get it done?  Something else?  I need something pre-made and won’t wrestle with doing a Raspberry Pi with hats, etc. as I have no patience for configuring/troubleshooting tech.  Thanks for any advice/thoughts. 

soix

Yes CD's beat any streamers I've heard regardless of the DAC used. Convenience is not there yet. Best wishes.

My Marantz SACD7S3 has crushed every streamer I have tried so far. And that makes me happy.

soix - if your budget is $1500, that will buy a nice stack of used (or new) CDs.

I really like CDs, and I still have not upgraded to streaming.  My CD collection includes material from MFSL, DCC, JVC XRCD, Telarc, FIM, etc.  And of course you can visit the Steve Hoffman forums, and really go down the rabbit hole of comparing various pressings/re-issues of CDs.

I streamed for years. Tidal Qobuz Amazon HD. One morning I got up and and hooked my old nad CD player up on a lark. Using its spdif out to my DAC. I haven’t streamed a song since. I upgraded to a Cambridge cxc transport and it’s even better. I play cds that are scratched up where the nad would skip. I’ll one have missed a beat on the Cambridge. Personally I’m done. Probably if I went with one of the 5k streamers and treated the internet noise with all those gadgets it might be equal or better? Now finding used music stores and finding cool cds is a new hobby of mine. As good as the cxc sounds I will probably upgrade my transport at some point.