Paul,
I have yet to find a transport that matches the sound quality of my ripped CDs and SACDs played using Roon and HQPlayer. I use a Holo Audio Red as an HQPlayer NAA (endpoint) then out to my Holo Audio May KTE DAC.
Even if I am not using HQPlayer, Roon still sounds as good or better than any transport I have tried.
I have all my CDs and SACDs handy but I never play them directly. I see no reason to as using a CD transport is inconvenient. Not as inconvenient as vinyl…but still inconvenient!
Vinyl is super inconvenient, but I still love it, I think it’s an age thing 
Same here. Roon with ripped cd’s sounds best. I have put my sony cdp-xa50es in the storage.
Ripped cd’s sound better than streaming MQA and on the same level as vinyl ((Technics SP10!).
I am not a spring chicken! I was alive when President Kennedy was assassinated.
I just can’t stand the rituals one must go through with vinyl. From all the cleaning to all the standing up and sitting down. And you still have to deal with the Rice Krispies sound effects. No thanks…
Until recently, I’ve been buying CDs and ripping them straight to FLAC on my NAS using dbPoweramp … I did several tests when I still had a CD player in my system and I could not tell the difference so scrapped the CD player (its a good one). That gave me ~13000 ripped tracks at CD quality. Used SONOS until the recent trashing of their app. Now on ROON + Tidal … doing everything I want. There is a setup cost for ROON so I just sucked it up (bought a NUC and converted it to a Rockbox) and then bought a lifetime licence for ROON. So far, just impressed, i can do stuff nond of the other services could
My current Roon Server is installed on my M1 MacBook Pro which is connected to the TV in the living room. Running on the latest version of MacOs Sequoia. The MacBook doubles as both Roon Server and game console.
Say what now? Really?
You’re replying to a post made over a year ago, it’s no longer applicable.
Roon still sucks without internet though but you can play at least.
I have a large CD collection. I like the format, collecting them, and prefer the mastering on many that I own to what is available on streaming services, but there are quite a few where I prefer the streaming mastering better yet still keep the physical copy.
I don’t play my CDs very often anymore since they are all ripped and played via Roon, but I don’t want to get rid of them. My CDs and LPs take up an entire spare room. Once I no longer have the luxury of that space, I will certainly get rid of them. I won’t have an option.
As someone who no longer has the space or the discs - I am heartened to read so many posts praising Roon and streaming SQ. If I need a CD these days (for music not on streaming) I buy it used and rip it to FLAC - sounds great and very convenient. I have some that sound better on Roon/Qobuz/Tidal than the CD rips. My only gripe is not everything is available on these streaming services and probably never will be so I am tempted with a turntable but trying to resist for space reasons.
So my verdict is CD transport not worth it but Vinyl for some music is.
I am glad there is successful life after losing space and its accompanied collection. 
I still buy vinyl as well, but only albums that I think would be fun to play on LP. I don’t chase many expensive audiophile reissues to try and beat out SACDs and CDs. The odd title, sure, but I am not a fan of the reissue train and just buy LPs of new releases that I dig playing on the format.
Yes I prefer SACD to roon any day of the week. And sometimes some CDs sound better than roon.
I have three systems with SOtM endpoints. On to the three the difference is noticeable not only to me but other listeners.
It’s probably the roon flac encoder that is the issue.
Roon doesn’t encode anything to flac.
Es macht nichts. [It doesn’t matter.]
Let me state it another way . . . empirically.
There is no straight pass-through from qobuz or a source to an endpoint in roon. There’s way too much stuff In the way. And I mean way too much.
In fact it’s quite unbelievable as to how much "stuff " is between the source and the endpoint.
I’d love to see a straight wire pass through from the source and all the other benefits of roon
And that “stuff” would be what exactly? And it could affect audio in exactly what way?
If any of that were true, it would be a Nobel Prize-level discovery.
Don’t ever think about the 20 data centers and big internet nodes that are between Qobuz and your router
Qobuz are quite transparent about this from their own website. Since 2016 they have been hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Another hosting service could have been used but I cannot imagine how a streaming service could be provided commercially any other way. Neither can Qobuz. Point to point is just not possible. Even for power:
I reckon the shortest possible route is to connect a DAC straight to the datacenter server which is running Qobuz. rolls eyes
