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Playing CDs sounds better than Qobuz — dammit

I’ve built a decent HeadFi rig over the past few months and am quite happy with it streaming Qobuz as a source via my iPad/iPhone.  I recently brought my CD player into the rig as there are some reference CDs I need that aren’t available on Qobuz.  Well, I made the mistake of playing some CDs and compared them to Qobuz, and in every case the CD sounds better — specifically a quieter background and more transparency overall.  I’ve got good cables from the dongle out of my iPad to the USB cable that runs to my DAC for streaming, so let’s leave cables out of the discussion for now because I think this goes deeper than that.  Needless to say I’m pretty disappointed right now because I’ve enjoyed not spinning discs over the past year or so and certainly don’t wanna go back to buying CDs again.  Ugh.

So, what I’m thinking is that streaming over WiFi through my iDevices may be the bottleneck.  IF that’s the case and I need to up my streaming game, what would be the cheapest way to go to overcome the bottleneck?  My thought is going hardwired (which I can do) to something like an iFi Stream or maybe a ProJect Streambox, but just wondering if that’d get it done?  Something else?  I need something pre-made and won’t wrestle with doing a Raspberry Pi with hats, etc. as I have no patience for configuring/troubleshooting tech.  Thanks for any advice/thoughts. 

soix
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jallan
253 posts
 

Depends totally on the equipment. When I streamed from my Mac, I thought CD sounded better, at least on red book. When I replaced the computer, streaming sounded better, using the same DAC.

richtruss
163 posts
 

Quobuz is way better than CD in my system, but that only came about with correct implementation and filtering of the wired Ethernet network.

audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
1,985 posts
 

Of course a cd sounds better! Your music is being derived straight from a physical media rather than over some internet connection. Plus the cd is more pure and direct, as the cd player or transport is hard wired right to your preamp. Hi res is over rated, at some point no one can tell the difference between it and a hi quality well recorded cd.

pjb255livecom
28 posts
 

There's an additional factor accounting for (most if not all of) the SQ difference that's not be considered, which is the RFI and EMI noise traveling with the bits that 

     1) alter the timing of the bits arriving at the streamer/DAC (i.e. jitter)

     2) enter the DAC (along with the bits) and contaminates the DAC's analog

         stages

Introducing an audiophile switch (like the Uptone EtherREGEN or better), and upgrading the ethernet cables (Supra Cat8 or better) from the cable modem to the streamer/DAC will yield DRAMATIC improvements in all SQ aspects. 

These upgrades effectively eliminated the delta in SQ in my system.

 

jl1ny's avatar
jl1ny
392 posts
 

I’d start with going hardwired with a CAT8. Careful when spending $$$ on a switch, I experimented with it and it did absolutely nothing. 

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