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Another post about a streamer upgrade

Hello

I’ve read a lot of the threads here about streamers and moving up the chain.

However, it seems there’s not a ton of info for relatively modestly priced streamers … most threads focus on the Bluesound / Ifi Zen range or the Aurender N200 range.

I have an Ifi Zen Stream with an LPS fronted by an Ether Regen and would like to move on to something better… mainly from a usability and app standpoint but would like to spend significantly less than $2k.

I think the writing is on the wall with the Innuos Pulse Mini but curious if others have a suggestion that would be a sq improvement from the Ifi and a much better user experience for around $1500 give or take.

I currently use the JPLAY app to access Qobuz to stream DLNA to the Ifi but it’s frustrating and connectivity isn’t great. 
 

I don’t use Roon so the Sense app from Innuos is probably the best bet from what I gather.   I’d also be interested in the Aurender system but according to many the N200 is where to start there and that’s significant higher priced than where I want to go at this point.

Are there any other options with great usability and sound that I’m not thinking of.

I typically run Spdif coax out to my dacs but could also run usb.

thanks in advance 

j_andrews

Showing 2 responses by hilde45

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,803 posts
 

@2psyop and ​​​​@hilde45 I agree - emphasis on the streamer to improve sound quality without even identifying what sound quality “issue” there is, is an inefficient place to exercise one’s upgrade-itis.

Right. That's the point. It's not -- @lalitk  -- a lack of desire for the best performance or being discriminating. Rather, what I've noticed is that people often jump to a "better" product without doing due diligence about where the improvement is needed. Without really taking the time to discern whether a streamer is the answer, I suspect that *some* people just go for product first and then justify it later. And dealers love to affirm that kind of move because they provide the customer with a good feeling (and confirmation bias).

I'm not saying that you did that or that anyone else here did it, but I suspect that doing the hard work of really testing things and eliminating variable is time consuming and onerous. And not as fun.

 

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,803 posts
 

@2psyop 

IMO the two most important factors in sound quality with regard to streaming has been the quality of the external DAC I have used and the quality of the original recording being streamed. 

This strikes me as correct. Many people tout expensive streamers but what is really driving that? In other words, I'd like to know if those who advocate for more expensive streamers (such as @ghdprentice ) did careful streamer vs. streamer tests so that they were certain that the differences they heard were due to the streamer alone and not, e.g., to other factors such as the ones mentioned by @2psyop. 

I posed this question -- roughly, "Is it the streamer or the DAC that makes the greatest sound quality difference?" -- and some very experienced members such as @jjss49 testified (if I remember correctly) that the streamer does make a difference but that is minimal compared to getting a good DAC. For both streamer and DAC, an external power supply also helps more than the differences delivered by the streamer alone.

Of course, the above is just about sound quality, not about interface, company reliability, etc.

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