is Hifi too good for basic streaming services?

[bobbybobbob]

Hi,

OK & please bear with me on this one! I've moved into a new home and have been looking into buying some new equipment. Ceiling speakers in the kitchen, soundbar for lounge plus others for multiroom - you know the kinda stuff.... I've spend time reading and talking to various shops about Yamaha vs Denon vs Sonos and found most (almost all) only recommend with Sonos for multiroom... and having almost committed to ordering a number Sonos bit and bobs, I've run into a problem!

So... most basic streaming services are only 128kbps, which I can generally tell when compared against higher bit rates, albeit it only when played one after the other... I'm also quite happy with 128 until I hear greater bit rates.

however, this brings me to my concern.....

if I'm playing128kbps streams, is a hifi amp and speakers (being £1.2k for Sonos) just over kill & I should goto Amazon and order by price lowest first?

I'm having a crisis of faith about this, I know I can add another source via RCA but am unlikely to.... actually after this I may pull out an "RaspberryPI and a JustBoom hat" and rip all my CD which have sat gathering dust....

In short - Is hifi equipment too good for what most people generally stream, and are we/they all investing in high quality kit, only to play low quality music?

....Discuss...

Thank you, Bob!

 

[bobbybobbob]

....I'll add that it appears that multiroom systems have a bit-rate limit (sonos is is something like 240kbps), at least when doing multiroom, and obviously bluetooth does too - although luckily higher than Sonos... I guess this is no difference from any traditional source, like vinyl and CD (being over 1000kbps) although I suspect that somewhat counter intuitively, modern wireless sources are some what "less" that older!

Am I missing something, or is this just how modern audio and hifi is? ....and is 240kbps good enough when buying midrange hifi equipment?

input welcome