750$ Intel NUC vs $6000 Aurender N200: I don't hear the difference

It comes from experience. I have never experienced anything in audio that could be 1) Verified , and 2) Not measured.  Usually #1 eliminates almost everything, and when it does not, #2 takes care of the rest. Every single time where I have heard, or experienced a verifiable sonic difference, there was also a measurable difference. Not just measurable, but above what are accepted limits to hearing sensitivity/discrimination, and significantly different.

I am not talking single point, THD either, but full scans, i.e. THD across frequency and output power, IMD with 2-3 points, and multi-point at multiple powers. Then again, just taking two time correlated streams (digital source only of course) can be highly revealing.

I think we both have respect for isolation, at least for the analog. I do believe a lot of the claims of "noise, RF, pick your poison" getting into the DAC clocking is for the most part suspect. If you know RF, you know that there is more RF coming off that trace 1/2" away then you are going to pick up externally. If the people who made those claims knew depth of D/A design, they would be far more worried about the D/A analog reference :-) ... but also not difficult to regulate for audio frequencies and eliminate noise.

I have convinced myself of things I heard that I later proved were not there. You are so hyper focused that something must be there that you convince yourself there is.

If your DAC is competent then the result is as expected just as expected as the pages of posts trying to explain away what is the simple conclusion.

I question the Nagra implementation and conclusions on the analog side wrt it being the purest implementation as evidenced by the distortion spec, but it is more than low enough not to be a concern. Digitally the architecture seems sound so why would there be a difference? If there was a difference that means the DAC is inherently flawed. Why do so many people want to jump to the conclusion that your DAC is inherently flawed I have no idea.

@yyzsantabarbara I used to have a couple of MicroRendu. They are electrically noisy. I got rid of them because it just didn't seem worth the effort and I ended up changing the architecture of my system anyway. I saw ASR did some tests later that they are sensitive to the power supply. I would have ended up getting rid of them anyways because the firmware did not support any form of time synchronization between multiple units which I needed. However I was disappointed because I was really hoping they would have worked out.

@essrand ,

This appears to be a "you can never be woke enough moment", complete with the required insults.

Extreme positions and echo chambers. No matter what you do eventually you do someone will eventually try to ostracize you for wrong speak.

The Petrus comment just tells me that someone is offended that you were allowed in the club without paying the membership fee.

You obviously don’t understand the difference either. That first time wine taster was still able to tell the difference between the Australian and the Petrus. I’m showing a link that exposes that even very experienced wine testers will prefer other wines over Petrus. It could have been a vintage thing it really doesn’t matter. There is no objective best in wine tasting. There is a most objectively accurate in audio but there is no subjective best either.

Do you really believe such bargains exist? I don't think so and neither does anyone else.

Everyone who understands the technology does not think bargains exist, they just think the expensive one is over priced. There is a difference. If I have a $1000 - 1 gallon pail of white paint and a $40 - 1 gallon can of white paint, and no one can tell the difference when they are on the wall, is the $40 can a bargain or the $1000 one over priced. Some just cannot except that one of the tested products is a $1000 can of white paint.

Burn in on a streamer?  What exactly will change w.r.t. what comes out of a streamer after burn in compared to before?

@itsjustme 

With USB isolators, it is best to use a low leakage power supply, whether linear or switch mode. That could be why you are experiencing differences. Some of the USB isolators my also have built in DC-DC across the isolation barrier. The cheap ones do, but you can turn them off, but the circuitry may still be there. It is probably not an issue in almost all systems, but may be in some. No magic though, as you have shown, just common sense approach to the problem.

Do people realize that whether a computer use 10 watts or 500 watts, it still must pass the same radiated and emitted radiation standards? There is no guarantee the lower power one is less noisy either, though it is often easier to shield, but that does not mean that it is.

RF fields from unintentional emitters (computers, etc.) are fairly small, even on cables assuming you are using something that has met FCCICESIEC standards for consumer/residential. You don't have to move very far away from them until the fields are low, probably lower than a nearby radio or TV station. Those cheap meters pick up stuff, but you have to be quite close to pick it up.   And even if there, there is no guarantee it will get into the end equipment and most of you are just guessing that it does.

It is not the issue. Burn in on a server , 150 hours.... come on. That is stretching the realm of believability beyond the usual in this hobby. Swamp land in Florida anyone?