Is this streaming?

Last evening, the first full evening I had with the new DAC, I started with listening to Harold in Italy by Berlioz, streamed from ClassicalArchives. It was wonderful. I hadn't heard the piece since college, when I did a paper on program music.

The piece is 40 minutes long. I listened all the way through, undistracted. I didn't read, or look at magazines or the web. I just listened. It was easy to do because it really sounded like music. Yes it was a compressed mp3 stream, some of the highs were chopped off. But the DAC made it sound like real music, soft, loud, and no brittle sound in the loud parts, everything flowed like music. I was still stunned at the quality of the sound. I wouldn't say it rivaled cd's, I would say it was better than the cd's I'm used to hearing, that is, before this DAC.

Later I started Pandora and typed in "James Taylor". Pandora started a string of Taylor and other mostly male singers. I only clicked off a couple of songs, one by the Eagles. Again the sound was fantastic. I didn't get that tired feeling you get after listening to mp3 streams after a while. The music sounded "musical". 

I know this sounds repetitive, but I don't know how else to put it. The DirectStream DAC takes in what you give it, whether it be mp3 streams, cd's or high definition files and puts out what sounds like music. No digital artifacts, no compressed icky sounds, no tiring imitation of what could be music. This is the real thing. 

I was able to sit close to the speakers during Harold in Italy, something I usually can't do because the digital streaming usually hurts my ears. Not so anymore. The music sounds sweet, and I want more.