Please help my ignorant a$$, I just want a good streamer...I think.

Yeah, you and I have the same brain when it comes to computers.  To me, it’s a black box containing a black hole of problems I can’t hope to understand — nor do I want to. 

In the end I would like the best streamer option I can get under say $2500. I need it to be as "plug and play" as possible or come with amazing instructions/guidance or even better someone that could actually teach me. Someone that can explain on my level. 

To me, and as others have recommended above, the Innuos Zen Mk3 was pretty much made for you (and me).  Just feed your CDs into it and done — all your music now available from your chair along with worlds of new music.  The new Sense app gets great reviews for features and sound quality, and if you ever have a problem Innuos’ customer support is first rate and will walk you through solutions.  No brainer if you ask me.  Best of luck!

Gotta love social media. Bloke takes the time to write 11 full paragraphs on what he does and doesn’t know or want. There’s still someone who thinks the solution is re-education and still someone who wants to talk technical. Who’s the “ignorant ass” here? The OP or the people who skim read the OP and came up with the exact opposite of what the OP explicitly says they wanted.

I’d be the first to despair that people don’t know the basics of IT 22 years into the 21st century but equally it’s not a contractual obligation and, frankly, no matter what the advances, it simply shouldn’t be required in order to “play music”. That it often does is not a reflection of poor user knowledge so much as poor user interfaces.

Thus why Innuos keeps coming up. The product od plug and play. The app is streets ahead.  

Ok gonna have to study the Innuos products a little deeper. Lumin supports tidal connect which is the control I prefer out of what I have tried.

@mahughes Boy you hit it on the head, its music! Thank you for you thoughts on this.

@danager "buy a book take a class" Ha you funny guy! Tried a book once. You do realize the books are basically useless to someone that has no knowledge right? By the time the book is published the programs have updated, things have been rearranged, changed or have been eliminated. Makes hard to figure stuff out when your reference is not the same as your computer. As far as classes you have space in your schedule for that hats off to ya! I don't. 

@soix Exactly! Thank you.

@chorus Thank you.

Thanks to everyone else also!

Cheers.

J.F.

In fairness to you John then it must be said straight up that the Innuos Sense app does not yet have full Tidal integration. In practice what they do they have works very well but it does mean that if you want your fave Tidal albums to show up properly in Sense you have to add them as faves in Tidal or the Tidal app first. Playlists are a bit more clunky too but… the next major update for the Sense app is clear. We’re currently on v2.08. I would expect 2.09 to be preparing for Tidal Connect and I’d expect 3.0 to be full Tidal Connect integration. They have an excellent site which shows their full roadmap and, rather wonderfully, it’s user led i.e. we can use their app to not just report bigs but to also make feature suggestions and then seen how many others have asked for the same thing and what Innuos are doing about it.
 

Although you can thus get more instant gratification from elsewhere by going for devices which already have Tidal Connect I’d suggest you talk to people currently using Innuos Sense.

There are two good reasons to do this. Firstly, they will all talk about the sound quality since Sense came along, which is outstanding. Secondly, they will talk about the Qobuz integration i.e. the way Qobuz (French version of Tidal)  is seamlessly integrated into the app so that, even though there’s no Qobuz Connect, it feels like there is.

If they do half with Tidal of what they’ve done with Qobuz then it’ll be worth the wait. It’s just ludicrous and way ahead of all other apps from manufacturers.

John it's about desire.  

But when my computer has problems if unplugging it for a day doesn't fix it I go buy a new one and start from scratch

With the above mindset I just can't imagine you'll be happy very long with any streaming product. Things are gonna glitch there's no way to really avoid it BUT with some basic understanding and a troubleshooting strategy most of the time they can be fixed. Actually turning it off and restarting usually fixes over half your issues so you're part of the way there.    If you have time to listen to music you have time learn a new skillset and it could actually be fun.  OK,  I'm stretching it a little but it is satisfying when it starts working again.

Your only other option is to  find a family member who has spent the time and lean on them. I couldn't fix anything until I learned about it but today I can do lots of stuff. 

I just retired and should start computers ed class like drivers ed for all the people who no longer can rely on company tech support.

Cheers and good luck