Big source improvement using CD player

You might want to look at the Oppo products. The udp 205 has a high quality Sabre dac.

I agree.  Try TIDAL.  No noise and better sound quality.  If you really must have a CD/DVD player buy an OPPO.  Have fun getting up and down to change music.  I can play one or two tunes from TIDAL and then move onto the rest or build my own mix of songs.  

I have done comparisons between Esoteric DV-60 CD player, and Tidal, playing through Audirvana. As good as the Esoteric is,it comes up short. In fact,I am thinking about selling .

Spotify 320kbps can sound absolutely fantastic. The app is really user friendly so easy to explore new music and create and enjoy playlists.


 I get a very small delta streaming SOME  higher rez content  from qobuz but that delta maxed out at 24bit 96khz on my system.

What made a much much greater improvement than going up resolution to my streaming setup was getting an Etherregen to replace a cisco network switch. $660 improved the system from top to bottom, better bass, more detail, improved tone, leading edges and decay. My system imaged well before but the addition of the switch put the depth into my soundstage. I had already chased the noise floor lower with power conditioning and isolation tweaks. These were available on 30 day trial although covid has delayed the production due to availability of parts.

I think CDs can sound amazing but I only own a few dozen. Having millions of albums at your fingertips is a no brainer for me for the price of an LP a month.

I also get excellent SQ from YouTube and that's even lower quality but again what an incredible library of musical material at my fingertips and the visuals are added fun. 

Wait a minute, you have a very capable DAC in that NAD so why don’t you just rip cd’s and play them off a network drive?

Don’t burn CD’s they tax the "error correction" way to much, just look at the differences that a laser has try to read.
Left original stamped retail cd
Middle burnt gold blank cd
Right burnt aluminium blank cd
https://ibb.co/BTM8ft4

No wonder the burnt cd’s always sound brighter to many, there’s many more errors being fixed, and that’s just a 50% chance to get a 1 or a 0 correct, because an error is replaced by what was read before, and that’s a 50% chance to get it right. This is why many CD players won’t even play burnt cd’s as they can’t even read the TOC (table of contents)

Cheers George