Hi

The title says it all, but to clarify : I'm not entirely happy with the online streaming service I use (it starts with an S, and it's definitely better than the one that starts with an I, but it still has some annoying quirks).

I've started to take a general interest in higher level audio, but I pretty much have no clue where to start. It reminds me of when I got into cameras. Same thing.

I still have a number of CDs which I will never get rid of (they're comparatively rare) and it would be good to hear them on the move but at a really high quality. I'm thinking of streamlining my music collection to the really important stuff, and listening to it at a superior quality to what I use now (an iPhone 7 plus with some Sony headphones. To my untrained ears it all sounds fine, but I'm sure there's more there. I just don't know how to go about finding it, hence this post.

I'm so new to this that I don't even know if higher level audio is compatible with downloaded (as opposed to CD) music. In other words, can one buy music in digital form and play it back on these devices? And is it worth doing so if the music is either not compressed or compressed as little as possible?

Talk of pre-amps and so on is still Greek to me, so any advice which addresses me like a three year old will be appreciated and taken on board.

I'm not even going to get into budget yet until I have some idea of what's what.

Sorry for the non-linear post; it reflects my mental state on the whole issue! If I had to boil it down :

1) How much better can it get than what I'm listening to now?
2) How much more expensive?
3) When do the diminishing returns kick in?

Thanks in advance for any advice!