This subject I am sure has had much debate but here is my experience for what it’s worth.
Streaming PRIMARE NP5 in to Chord DAC and onwards to Denon AVR, sometimes Tidal the superior source and sometimes Qobuz. This would appear to have nothing to do with sample rate or bit size, quite odd.
Then on to CD, is the quality worse, the same or better? A shocking £40 gets you a Denon second hand professional DVD player fed via coaxial in to the Chord.
Bit agricultural to use but totally superior to streaming. Now if this old boy can beat the legs off streaming some thing is a bit amiss some where, is it not?
A large pinch of salt perhaps with any thing stating high resolution??
I take it that by ‘streaming’ you are referring exclusively to online streaming, not streaming from your own store of music files? If that is the case I have no comment.
The Primare is very much an entry level £500 streamer and it seems quite likely that a pro Denon DVD player is a higher quality source. That it’s better than the Primare says nothing whatsoever about how streaming compares to CD, which is a hugely bigger subject.
I don’t doubt your result, but other ears and other systems get other results.
We did lots of ‘blind’ A/B testing with various boxes, and concluded that none of us could hear a difference between the best streaming source and the best CD option, but there were big differences between individual boxes.
Streaming from my laptop was much worse than streaming on my Naim NDX2. Streaming from the NDX2 was still less good than playing CD on my old Naim CDS2, but steaming rips from a Naim Core into the NDX2 was just as good. Adding the XPSDR to the NDX2 made streaming Qobuz/Tidal, streaming from the Core or playing the CD indistinguishable to multiple listeners. The differences we noticed were always specific to that version of that album on that streaming service or that version of the CD or both, not the hardware.
The differences between streaming services I know has been discussed at length. My own hearing is that older recordings pre say 1990 are better on Tidal, later better on Qobuz. I have no knowledge on any factual basis for this.
It might not cost very much, but it doesn’t sound entry level. If you search around the forum, you’ll find people have added the NP5 to first generation Naim streamers to add functionality and also found an improvement in sound quality.
It comes with a basic wallwart power supply, adding a better power supply definitely improves things.
The NP5 is neutral, detailed and open, maybe not a good match with the particular chord DAC being used. Or the rest of the system.
Me too.
Same for vinyl vs digital, Ethernet cables, switches, powerblocks, source first, shims on Rega arms, tweaks, Naca 5 vs some much more expensive cables, importance of transport in streaming, non Naim cables……
Which model DVD is it? I run a NP5 into a MK1 Chord Hugo via optical. For £40 I might give the same model DVD a try and let you know how I get on!
I find my streaming setup very good. Better than my CD5, and better than a ND5 XS2 I compared it against. Not saying it can’t be battered with a CD source on the same recording/master etc. but in isolation it’s very enjoyable.
My biggest issue is usability, something I almost traded against absolute SQ by considering buying the ND5 XS2. At the moment I’m staying put though
My experience - streaming off my NAS in FLAC>WAV through my NDX2/555 beats quite clearly Tidal and Qobuz and even my previous CDS3. And in fact streaming off the NAS into my QB1 is amazingly good.