Challenge:
Listen (at least part way through) to a song from your favorite streaming platform (Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, etc) that you know you have on CD . Now, pop the CD in and listen to that same song.

How much better is the sound from the CD? 15%, 25%? more?

For me, it's not just that the volume is louder (which it assuredly is), the base hits harder w/o distorting and the music has more power across the band.

(note: each type of sound input has it's own EQ settings stored in memory....in other words when you stream a song, the memory uses the EQ settings you used last time you streamed; when you play from a CD, the memory uses the EQ settings from the last CD played.)

 

If one were to read about streaming music vs cd music, it's clear that cd music is almost always superior. At home or in a car.

 

Agreed. It's just nice to have the opportunity to get the most out of the LS Levinson setup and worth a small investment on a favorite album.
I suppose the older members who remember vinyl were saying the same thing when cassettes were all the rage.
Convenience and portability at the cost of quality.

 

I have ripped my CD's to lossless OGG format, so i don't hear any difference between these two.
And yes, i buy my CD's... I never stream because it sounds crap.

 

I stream in high bit rate when possible. Sounds great. Sirius via satellite is awful.

I"ll try to get into my boxes of CD's and get some of the better ones out.

 

This is the LP vs CD argument on a different level. I've got a bunch of USB's burned with my favorite artists. Mark Knopfler sounds pretty damned goo on this unit I'll tell you that.

 

So the CD vs the lossless services (Tidal etc) are noticeable?

 

That's correct.

(note: I had Tidal and though it's the 'best' quality of the streaming services I ended up getting rid of it because the buffering often necessary to stream the higher quality was lame.)