Help settle a streaming argument!

Sure, in a luxury 8 cinder  sport car even the ashtray "matters"...

I am getting more from this thread than most.  Thank you all!

I'm getting the itch and ran an experiment.

I have a Bluesound Node, current model using usb out to a highly modified MHDT Orchid dac.

I have Dali Epicon 8 speakers, Luxman 509x integrated and a Marantz CD I use as a transport.

Transparent and Shunyata cabling.

I can hear virtually no difference between the Bluesound streaming Qobuz and the cd.

Does this mean that the dac will probably not keep up with a better streamer and perhaps I should start with a new dac?

Thanks.

If you are using the same DAC for both, your CD transport and the streamer, then you perhaps may check your CD transport and also other your audio  components, the amplifier on speakers. In general do not expect a huge difference in sound quality.  If you have a good system both sources will give you dicent sound quality and often it is a matter of taste which source you like more. 

As an example, my son liked more the sound from Node 2i over a much more expensive Melco server. And yes, the Node a nice steamer it is compact, easy to use and its software is quite flexible.

Modern DACs designed and built with the intention to be accurate will be audibly transparent. You’d have to really screw up a streamer to get one to audibly color the sound. 
 

No one is going to settle your argument. It will just be amplified here.