The negative positive

[Pim]

Ignoring the obvious convenience advantages of streaming, it does puzzle me why 'old school' CD players should out perform modern streamers and music servers.  It occurs to me that that a music server has a number of technical advantages.  First, a CD player has to read the CD in real time.  A music server runs from a ripped file.  This file can ripped from a CD using a modern ripper with 'paranoid mode' or similar, re-reading difficult sections for a long as it wants until it is happy with the result.  Even then, you can use EAC / 'Exact Audio Copy' systems or similar, to compare the file to a data base of very many ripped CD's, so in theory giving you the most accurate version of a CD as possible.  Once the file is ripped, it can be stored on an SSD drive, which is far easier to read than a CD with a laser etc.  Furthermore, a music server can be a 100% solid state device, zero moving parts.  A CD player needs a motor and other rotating components.  Once the data is read, the technology on a CD player should be more or less identical to that in a streamer of music server.  (more or less identical, clearly a music server will need to cope with 24bit, DSD formats or whatever, but when in 16/44 mode, the same)

So if I am right and streamers and music server have an advantage with the basic technology available, why is it CD players are still considered king with respect to sound quality?  

Any ideas out there?  I find this one a little baffling.

I get what you're saying about ripping Confused. I have a CD of Anouk - Lost tracks. It's been one of my favourites for years and I scratched it to buggery when I was playing it in a portable CD player. Some songs were beyond repair. Until I ripped it with one of those programs that checks in a database whether or not you have all the bits. It took my laptop a full night (literally from late afternoon till the next morning) but it ripped it completely. I was amazed!

That's a bit of an extreme example but surely a ripped file into a memory of sorts has the advantage of perfect 'reading'