Best Cheap DAC Streamer


I have come to possess a fairly high quality setup with Linn Amps and Speakers, but I have no where near the wealth to buy the type of gear discussed on here. (Furthermore, if I did, I hope I would send a good chunk of it to fix cleft plates in India before spending tens of thousands on a stereo.)I tend to do most of my listening from my phone by way of car stereo, ear buds or an $85 JBL Flip speaker. 

I want to set up a home streaming/DAC device that will sound good enough for my ears. I would like the interface to be simple for getting music from a streaming service, with music info available on a display, and I would like it to have a voice activated interface which might encourage me to listen to more music on the stereo at home. I know some of you can't wait to scorn me for my weak listening abilities. Maybe you can skip it this time and let anyone speak up who has some some advice on a system for pretty close to $300 (or less!). I would consider buying used.

charleyprice

I would go for a Bluesound Streamer. They sound very good for the money, I bought a Bluesound Node for $350 on Amazon, they have some better sounding ones as well. I got it in order to break in an amp so not to use my high end tube gear... It sounds suprisingly good driving a $10K amp and $35K speakers.  You definitely want to go the best sounding you can afford, Linn equipment is pretty revealing. Your ears are probably orders of magnitude better than you think.

The WiiM's are also Amazon Alexa enabled.  So you do have a level of voice control.  How well it handles the voice commands, I don't know.

WiiM Ultra is terrific...had one in my Amazon cart and they sent me a brief offer for one at $279...Pro Plus is also quite good if you want to spend less...but the Ultra well worth the slightly higher cost, and works good as preamp too...