My 5 cents: I have a server with ripping built in (or external USB CD drive) and rip all CDs to the servers drive (SSD preferred). They will sound better than from any transport or Internet stream.
Why is this so? The ripping process is not real time and gets all error correction as in computers in general. The reading from the drive is easier and has no mechanical problems ... besides general vibration on the electronics. And on the other hand the streaming suffers from real time and Internet drops and problems of your internal wiring or WLAN.
My technical arguing might be wrong ... mathematician :) , but it is real results from my own setup. I do stream a lot via Roon / Qobuz just to find some music. If I like it enough and the recordings seems worth it, I buy it and download the files to the server and play them from there. It always sounds better than streamed directly from Qobuz.
For my setup, please consult the "virtual system" on this site.
Why is this so? The ripping process is not real time and gets all error correction as in computers in general. The reading from the drive is easier and has no mechanical problems ... besides general vibration on the electronics. And on the other hand the streaming suffers from real time and Internet drops and problems of your internal wiring or WLAN.
My technical arguing might be wrong ... mathematician :) , but it is real results from my own setup. I do stream a lot via Roon / Qobuz just to find some music. If I like it enough and the recordings seems worth it, I buy it and download the files to the server and play them from there. It always sounds better than streamed directly from Qobuz.
For my setup, please consult the "virtual system" on this site.