Anyone else feel like it’s the Wild Wild West?


I’ve been following the streaming threads here for a while now, and I find it both exhilarating and intimidating.  I mean, we all know everything in high-end audio matters to some degree or another, right (Ok, maybe except for the flat earth contingent)?  From what I’m reading and from my own experience the process of optimizing steaming has near unlimited potential, and some even say it rivals or even surpasses vinyl if taken to the max.  Cables, routers, optical, filters, extenders, power supplies, switches, etc., they all seem to make a significant difference despite the naysayers who say bits are just bits.  I’m all in on this steaming renaissance, but most of the jewels of useful info are buried in other posts, so I’d like to have this be a consolidator post of your best streaming experiences and recommendations for others who could benefit greatly from your hard-won victories and maybe save a lot of people the agony you went through to get to streaming nirvana.  So have at it — let’s empower this community in this noble task and help everyone realize the amazing potential of this magic gift to audiophiles.  What say you?

soix

Showing 1 response by barts

I took the easy route:

Started streaming in 2019 with a Bryston BDA-3.14 streamer/dac which sounded really good to me, I have no vinyl so no comparo to do.

Had some problems with rasberry Pi based streamer internal to the piece. Talked to Bryston and they (at the time) couldn't get the streamer board.

So, we agreed that I will trade-in the 3.14 for a BDA-3 brand new, zero cost to me, I mean zero, no shipping and a return label for the 3.14.  That my friends is customer service.

Then purchased a Nucleus+ w/2TB drive installed.

Hardwired ethernet to Nucleus and then USB to DAC.  The DAC reclocks the digital input anyway and buffers around 10 seconds of the feed.

An Apple Macbook pro running Roon.  Streaming from Qobuz.

It sounds amazing to me, particularly DSDx2.

Could it be better? Sure.  

I'm with @mike_in_nc on this thread, nothing really fancy going on! Audience balanced cables to ARC pre, Audience 10ga power cables on all the front end.

Total all in ==> ~$7k.

A'gon should add a "Streaming" category!

Regards,

barts