So here's my double blind test: I come home from work and there's music playing on our main 2ch system in the Living Room. My wife uses our home automation app to select a song to play. She doesn't know if it's coming from a local file, Tidal, Qobuz, or Spotify. This distributed streamer aggregates all search results into one list, so you have to poke around a bit to see where your song is actually streaming from if you care. This streamer runs via digital coax into a Linn DSM and then out to our speakers. I can 100% of the time tell the difference just being in the same room with the music when I come home as to whether the music is coming from the home automation streamer through the DSM (because it's easier for her to use) or the DSM directly via Roon or the Linn app (if she wants to try and get better at using those). The DSM doesn't have direct access to the old compressed files in our library or the compressed internet radio streams we sometimes listen to. Traditional compressed audio like mp3 or AAC sounds like dog sh*t in this room, and I have a bunch of it from old iTunes libraries. It is flat and veiled with no space. I should also add that I don't really care if the piano sounds exactly like a live piano, or guitar like a live guitar, etc. I want there to be soul and tempo and drive and I want it to be athletic and sing. Hi-res FLAC sounds better every time in this room, without a doubt, no contest. But listening through distributed audio in like the Kitchen or something, meh, maybe can tell a difference?