Streaming vs Physical Media


I have a decent digital front end with a Lumin U1 Mini (w/ external power supply) and a Border Patrol SE dac.  Have some CDs, but no transport.  Would a CD transport sound better than a streamer of similar quality/price?  

mdonda

A CD player IS a streamer. It streams 16 bit data to a DAC. It reads this data from an optical disc. The difference is in the encoding. Since lossless streams are available there is no difference anymore.

Have the CD player try to access music from tidal or Qobuz. I’ve been streaming for over 15 years, got rid of my $3000 Classe CD player 14 years ago, and still have a Sony SACD player that hasn’t played a disc in 10 years.

I have tried all different types of servers/streamers and the best 3rd party streamer I found was the Auralic over the Lumin and Aurender, and the Auralic software is still much better than the other 2. I sold the Auralic years ago. The only reason I would buy a 3rd party server/streamer would be if I would ever need to use usb to the dac, which I will never do again.

Since I keep my server 100ft away from my listening room, the main thing that matters most is the software that reads/accesses the music, which can be Roon, Aurdivana, or a couple others. My current setup sounds much better than the Auralic did and the Auralic sounded better than the others I auditioned, but to get this improvement, I also got rid of my usb dac and went to a high quality dac with Ethernet and i2s input

@lalitk in regards to that eno Ethernet filter does it has to be hardwired to  your streaming device or just to your router? I currently stream Qobuz over Wifi.

@idigmusic64

The ENO filter is designed to be placed between your Ethernet router/switch and streaming device. So yes, ENO needs to be hard wired to your streaming device. The idea behind this passive filter is to eliminate ‘noise’ on the Ethernet line thus leading to clear refinement as end result.

Your setup may not allow hard-wired connection but Wi-Fi is not the best way to take advantage of high quality streaming.

@lalitk Curious if you also tried fiber optic from your router, and if so what product did you use and how was the ENO better?