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Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

RE: Streaming vs CD Which Really Sounds Best?

In theory, the CD and a streaming version of that CD should be identical. Of course, a CD player might not be perfect at reading the data, but for this purpose, you can assume that they are the same as a streamer from a service like Amazon, Tidal etc, or a copy you ripped from your CD.

Since it's not completely known as to what you might be getting from a service, the only good comparison would be your CD player versus a copy of the CD ripped to your local server or NAS. Now, you will notice a difference because the CD player has a DAC implementation and an analogue stage that can be wildly different than the DAC handling the streaming version.

IME, the differences in DACs are not night and day, but subtle. Only you can determine which one you like better.

I do agree with Paul, the recording and mastering is far more important than higher resolution formats.

-Rod


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