Old phones as streaming sources

Interesting discussion so far. Thanks to all of you Who’ve taken time to contribute. Stepping back a bit, I noticed on this thread, but also many many others that “quality “is either expressly or implicitly referenced to another piece of similar equipment or to price. I know I am not unique in this, but I try to reference my listening experience to similar live music. Since I tend to like small group, jazz, and classical, this is reasonably easy to do and I take every opportunity I can to refresh my memory by attending concerts. Within that framework I find that reproduced music at home merely has to reach a certain threshold and then it is OK for me. I can’t help but wonder if the concept of “better” gets confused with “different“ by those who compare one piece of equipment to another as the reference. Your thoughts most welcome.

Another observation is that when music reaches that nebulous “OK “level. The quality of the recording itself becomes much more controlling of the overall experience. There are some recordings which no matter how good the system is just don’t create aural excitement for me :-) Anyone else find that to be true?

ok, i’ll go!  regarding reference music, I don’t know, I think live music and my system at home are very different.  For example, my most recent live music experiences, both very recent, were Blues Alley (very small) and Kennedy Center (much bigger but not huge).  In both cases, instruments were amplified, and there’s no “soundstage” to speak of.  So my view is that soundstage is an audiophile artifice created to replace the visual experience of live music.  It’s not really about recreating the auditory experience of live music.  

Re good recordings, totally agree, the quality of the recording really matters to my enjoyment.  There are some recordings that just suck, no matter how great the artist performance may have been.

I use an old decommissioned iPhone in my car, sending downloaded Deezer through the lightening jack to my car’s DAC. I’m happy with it. Any additional benefit would be lost in that environment anyway.