What’s the budget for a dac?
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Many thanks for all your input on my query. I need a good DAC to go with a streamer (or at least that's what I think I need) since the Rogue pre-amp doesn't have a DAC. (These forums are great when people aren't arguing back and forth!)
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I don’t suffer from grammar pedantry syndrome. And I didn’t miss your point.
Enjoy your weekend!
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@audphile1
oops, misspelled your handle. see above…
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@audophil1
You missed my point. I am not a huge fan of that Mytec DAC either. I did a shootout with a friend of 4 different DACs, and the Brooklyn was my least favorite (vs. Okto, DCS Bartok, and Gold Note DS10). Obviously DACs sound very different.
But a decently engineered streamer will not sound different from another decently engineered streamer, IMHO. You heard a noticeable difference in moving from the M3 network card to a decently engineered streamer. I provided you with a credible reason why - for whatever reason, Bricasti’s network card has extraordinarily high amounts of jitter. Doesn’t mean their DAC doesn’t sound great, it just probably needs a low jitter streamer. See my earlier post where I discuss this very possibility in the context of the iFi DAC.
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Mdalton I just saw your response. So…the difference between using the M3 network card as a roon endpoint and using the M3 as a DAC only via USB from the Aurender N200 is huge. The article talks about jitter in the M3 as a hole, not just the network card.
M3 is super low noise, resolving and natural sounding DAC. If there’s any jitter I couldn’t hear it with a CD transport or Aurender.
I auditioned Mytek Brooklyn 2 against Chord Qutest and Bryston BDA-3 in my system. I liked Chord the best and Bryston a close second. Absolutely hated the forward digital nature of the Mytek. But again, Bricasti to my ears is better than all the aforementioned DACs.
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I have an Innuos Pulsar and it's fantastic
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@audphile1
Your experience is exactly what the data on jitter from the M3 with network card would have predicted. According to the lab report of the HiFi News review of the M3, jitter is over 1900 psec, which is 190(!) times as much jitter as the Mytec with any streamer they ever tested it with! I’ve attached a link to that review for you. I’ve also attached the M21 review, which at over £17,000 has the same problem.
Your experience only serves to validate the point I’ve tried to make in this, and many other, threads. For streamers, measurements can be very insightful, both in terms of what we hear, and what we don’t. Too often, we assign credit and blame based on imperfect inadequate or imperfect information. And I’m just trying to help others avoid that problem.
Bricasti M21
Brisasti M3
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I prefer the Roon model of a powerful machine on the server end, kept away from the audio system, and a lightweight low powered quiet streamer connected to DAC. This means you can use an ordinary computer at 1/5 the price as your server and its even well more flexible.
that’s exactly what I had. Roon on Mac Mini in another room away from my system, streaming using Roon ready network card in the Bricasti M3 DAC. Dreck.
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@mdalton
Thanks! Love your system too. Where did you get your TD-160?
Funny thing is I purchased the TD-160 at a thrift store for $5. Then spent $$s to have it completely refurbished by a local tech.
It sounds wonderful. But streaming has become my listening preference, so it lately receives only moderate use.
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What is it with the orthodoxy guard dogs in these threads?
Part of the problem, other than rudeness, is that a baseline set of definitions is never established before the debate even starts. I was speaking specifically of lightweight streamers whose only mission is to accept streaming audio data and render it to the DAC.
Those beasts like the Innuos Zenith are servers and not just streamers. They need way more computing power for processing, DSP, etc. than a streamer alone requires. This triggers the neurosis of ambient noise reduction, custom motherboards and power supplies and such. In effect, a model like that is fully featured but seriously overpowered and overpriced as a streamer, and really works against itself as a streamer.
I prefer the Roon model of a powerful machine on the server end, kept away from the audio system, and a lightweight low powered quiet streamer connected to DAC. This means you can use an ordinary computer at 1/5 the price as your server and its even well more flexible.
When I said streamers don’t have a sound I was specifically referring to the “more depth and greater soundstage and higher highs and lower lows” dreck, and actually to the specific question of the OP about pairing with preamp and amp. A streamer isn’t going to add warmth to a cold system or such, I.e. like pairing analog components to create proper synergies, except via DSP. The analog section of a DAC is the closest item to the digital chain that might have that influence.
when I see posters spouting off about these high 4 and 5 figure server/streamer combos, I see it as about convenience and features, but they really fight against themselves because of the need for computing power and then the huge efforts to contain the theoretical consequences of that much power on rendering to the DAC. They are not optimal but rather a convenience compromise.
Streamers are and IMHO should be relatively simple and low powered computing devices. I’ve built hundreds of computing devices and have been streaming on my own network since the 1990s. I’ve built many of the Audiophile Style machines they publish configurations for. My audio system is designed to test the efficacy of component combinations. And I spend most of my time listening, not defending my conspicuous expenditures on forums and telling people they have to spend multiple thousands to get good digital audio.
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@jetter
Thanks! Love your system too. Where did you get your TD-160?
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@mdalton you have very nice systems. I bet they sound beautiful.
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@audphile1
oh yeah???
Note: 3rd grade level response, like yours.
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Dalton I’m not wrong. And that’s precisely why you’re irritated.
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@audphile1
Please don’t speak for me, you’re wrong on the facts.
@soix
It’s really not all about you, I was asking the OP if it was helpful, not you, lol!
Be that as it may, I have been streaming since 2004 - I was a very early adopter, obviously. My experience of direct A/B comparisons during the last 20 years includes some in my system, some in friends’ systems, and some at dealers. In addition to my original Musiccast system, I’ve owned Sonos and a wyred4Sound modified Sonos, both using external DACs, of course, and then more recently, the 6 streamers in my current systems (2 Bluesounds, the Pro-Ject, iFi, RPi in Okto DAC, Goldnote streamer/DAC) as well as a Raspberry Pi I built as an experiment for this very purpose. Friends’ and dealers’ streamers I’ve A/B(ed) include DCS Bartok, Innuos Zenith, Simaudio Moon 681, various Aurender products, and others.
I’ve sat next to a good friend who, being coached by a dealer, heard things I simply did not. I know he thought he heard them, and I honestly believe the dealer did too. (This friend, btw, is almost 10 years older than me - over 70 - and has definitely experienced greater hearing loss than my 63-year-old self, so it wasn’t my hearing!). Aural memory sucks, valid A/B comparisons are difficult, and confirmation bias is challenging.
In summary, I didn’t start doing research and reading reviews until recently, almost 20 years after I began listening to streamers in all sorts of environments with lots of different gear. This research has only served to validate my 20 years of experience. It certainly helps explain my experience, and I offer it to others to help them as they try to sort their way thru the disparate views and experiences on this forum and others, including yours.
I don’t really understand why my contrary views are such a threat to your constitutive self. Oh well. I’m quite sure we’d enjoy each other’s systems, certainly more than each other’s company, lol!
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@audphile1 Got it, and thanks. Funny how impenetrable often coincides with unwilling/afraid to just use their own ears. 🙄
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Soix. I’ve been thru this with him. He had formulated his opinion based upon what he read in the reviews and elsewhere on the internet…and he only made note of the material that fed into what he believes and deems logical and scientific. This guy is impenetrable. You’re embarking on a fools errand.
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I hope this is helpful.
@mdalton It’s not.
There are others, like me, whose beliefs/experiences suggest that if you spend more than a relatively small amount of $ (i.e., $250 to $2,000?) on a streamer, you may be spending money on features that have nothing to do with sound quality.
So, I see you have a Zen Stream and ProJect Stream Box so let’s just cut to the chase here. What >$2k streamers have you had in your system that don’t sound any better than those? An Innuos Zenith was superior on every level in my system relative to my Zen Stream with upgraded power supply — not even close, so it’d be very interesting to know on what you’re basing you’re contention that there’s no sonic benefit to spending more on a streamer. Please share, or is it just your belief that more expensive streamers don’t sound better because numbers or other people say they don’t?
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To the OP: As you can see, there are some on this forum whose beliefs/experiences suggest that you need to spend a material portion of your budget - relative to your DAC - on the streamer. There are others, like me, whose beliefs/experiences suggest that if you spend more than a relatively small amount of $ (i.e., $250 to $2,000?) on a streamer, you may be spending money on features that have nothing to do with sound quality.
In my experience, most of those who argue for substantial expenditures on streamers point to lower noise as the explanation for differences they claim to hear (if they offer an explanation at all), because that can be the only explanation! And sometimes they cite manufacturer marketing materials promising “decreased jitter and noise”.
But here’s the rub. Noise, particularly in the digital domain, is pretty easy to measure. And yet there’s this weird cognitive dissonance among some when confronted with actual measurements of noise. They claim you can’t measure it, accuse others of being Luddites for incorporating actual science and data into their decision-making process, resort to name-calling (I mean, I’ve even been called an “Alvin” for god’s sake, lol!), etc.
Let’s take jitter, for example. The issue is not whether there’s no jitter, it’s whether there’s a substantial difference in jitter across streamers, how much jitter we’re talking about, and the extent to which different DACs reject jitter from streamers.
In my research, I have found the “lab report” section of HiFi News streamer reviews incredibly insightful. For exposition, I’ve looked at the results from 11 different streamer reviews over about 4 years, with prices ranging from £1,000 to £33,000; in 5 of them they use a usb connection to a computer as their control scenario vs. the streamer, and then they use up to 3 different DACs with both the computer and the streamer. All 11 of the reviews I’ve pulled feature the Mytek Brooklyn dac, 6 include the iFi Neo iDSD, and 4 include the AQ Dragonfly. Here are some takeaways:
1) The Mytek has low jitter levels itself, and also is very effective at rejecting any streamer-induced jitter;
2) The iFi is a low jitter DAC, but is not nearly as effective at rejecting streamer-induced jitter; and
3) The amount of jitter produced by all 11 of the streamers is very low, and doesn’t vary materially by price.
How did I arrive at these conclusions? Here are several snippets of the data:
- the single highest jitter number, 550 psec, was with the computer/iFi combo, substantially more than the computer/Dragonfly number (300 psec).
- but, when paired with a decent streamer (e.g., the Volumio Rivo or Aurender N200), the iFi’s jitter amount was substantially less than the Dragonfly (18 & 9 psec v. 150 & 135 psec, respectively.
- the Mytek’s jitter levels were never above 10 psec, whether using the computer or any one of the 11 streamers.
That’s why even a Raspberry Pi can sound really good; many DACs, even moderately priced, do a very good job of rejecting jitter - and other sources of noise - from a streamer. But there are decent DACs, in this case the iFi, that may not be engineered to reject jitter from a streamer. So, to be safe, you can invest a little more than $150 and get a very low-jitter streamer.
And finally, I am most certainly not a welcome visitor to ASR and Amir. After all, I use tube amps and spin vinyl, two technologies that Amir sh_ts on as from the fricking Middle Ages.
I hope this is helpful.
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I have used mac mini with Roon, Auralic Aries G1 and Lumin U1 Mini with both native software and Roon as well as Tidal Connect, Bricasti M3 DAC internal network card as Roon endpoint and with Mconnect, and am currently using Aurender N200 streamer with both the native Conductor and as a Roon Endpoint. Not only do the streamers sound different, using the native processing on Auralic and Aurender sounds slightly better than Roon. Tidal connect and Mconnect sound slightly harsher/more “digital” to me than either Lumin native app or Roon.
I agree streamers don’t have a sound unless you drop them on the floor or hit them with a hammer. They sit there quietly and process the incoming data stream.
To understand why streamers or even the native processing vs. Roon sound different you need to spend some time reading, researching and understanding different designs and why a certain design decision was made, as well what in the streamer design and implementation influences sound quality. How certain designs are optimized for USB and others are optimized for SPDIF and what makes a difference between USB and SPDIF.
No one here owes anyone any explanation. Do your own ground work. And when ready, once your system reaches a certain level, you may want to compare few different streamers to hear it for yourself.
Saying a component in a signal chain doesn’t influence sound of your system is just not a good look.
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Or maybe someone who has spent a lot of time with streaming tech, has a good system with lots of options, and a good ear.
Soix is probably right when he says the majority agree with him, but this is a self selecting group.
@jji666 Yup, a self-selecting group that use their ears. Spending time with streaming tech is not the same as actually listening. What streamers have you actually compared in your system? I started streaming with an iPad and have had both the iFi Zen Stream and Innuos Zenith Mk3 in my system and the differences were patently obvious between all three — not even close, which is why saying all streamers sound the same is just ludicrous to me. If you’ve tried better streamers and hear no difference then fine — sad, but fine — but just basing your argument on theory and tech experience is weak and not fully informed and won’t hold much weight here. There’s a reason so many here have heard meaningful differences and have upgraded to better streamers, and it ain’t because all streamers have no sound or because they’re fooling themselves.
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I’d rather sit with Alvin then Amir for sure!
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poor advice, and the words of someone with little/no experience comparing streamers and/or has a system or ears incapable of revealing the differences.
Or maybe someone who has spent a lot of time with streaming tech, has a good system with lots of options, and a good ear.
Soix is probably right when he says the majority agree with him, but this is a self selecting group. Wouldn’t it be a pretty useless community if everyone had to agree on everything? No need to throw insults to those with their own opinions.
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All streamers have no sound = Head in the sand.
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Actually Alvin is both smarter and more pleasant than Amir.
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@audphile1 Heh heh. Yeah, my bad. Alvin wouldn’t touch the nuts here.
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@mdalton
Soix +2
"streamers don’t make a difference." Completely incorrect. Streamers make a huge difference. OP if you have the finances look at Playback Designs. Otherwise Aurender is a good choice.
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Soix you just offended Alvin the chipmunk.
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@soix
yes, I know, we all look the same to you,
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@mdalton. Yeah, sorry I got your daddy’s name wrong.
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@soix
btw, Alvin? Did you mean Amir?
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@soix
Lol! Well there’s your proof! I assert that the”vast majority agree with me” (though without a poll). You must be right. What was I thinking?
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@mdalton The vast majority of people here find meaningful differences in the impact streamers have on sound so you’re in the distinct minority, If you can’t hear differences between streamers then that’s sad but good for you, and I hear ASR calling your name hard. Alvin is your daddy.
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ok, let’s do substance. @jji666 said streamers don’t have a sound. Completely reasonable, consistent with data and science, Streamers handle a digital data stream, no conversion to analog. The only possible differences across streamers is jitter and other noise, which is easy to measure. Measurements of different streamers indicate de minimis differences re noise. Therefore no differences in sound. Many audiophiles experience no difference in sound across different streamers. Ergo, I’m your daddy.
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@mdalton Maybe because they don’t like people who like to play mommy. Hmmm.
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@soix
yes, I hate it when someone disagrees with me. In that moment, I am compelled to tell that person that they don’t know what they’re talking about. But I do wonder why i have no friends. hmmmm…
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@mdalton Nah, just issues with ridiculous statements.
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@soix
anger issues perhaps?
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@mdalton Yeah, and I have a different opinion from him which is perfectly within my right. He came out and made a strong statement that I thought was ridiculous and rebutted it. That happens here — deal with it. BTW, the vast majority of people here agree with what I said, so get over that dude.
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@soix
who the h are you? Another audiophile has a different opinion from you. Dude! Get over it!
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All good choices! I have 2 nodes and the software can't be beat. That being said, I switched my whole front end to a Moon 390, which incorporates a streamer and I have been very happy. I now mostly listen to my NAS or lps.
Moon makes great products with a terrific warrantee and I think the 280 is worth a try. The software is very good, not BluOS good, but very good.
Good luck and have fun!
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@soix
+1
I’ve owned streamers in the $3K —-> $22K range and each step up rendered significant sonic improvements… pretty much like every other component does.
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Aurender is excellent. Build quality, sonics, UI are all great. Solid as a rock.
The newest series is also Roon ready.
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Streamers don’t have a sound and I agree software would be the focus.
Well that’s just completely untrue, poor advice, and the words of someone with little/no experience comparing streamers and/or has a system or ears incapable of revealing the differences. Both sound and software are vitally important, and discount either at your peril.
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Streamers don’t have a sound and I agree software would be the focus. I would include Roon ready as a requirement because you may want that option at some point.
REL subs are fast enough to keep with Maggies. If you use DWM bass panels keep the volume low on those…
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I have Maggie 3.1 and i want to echo comment about "please, no subs" . I have a very large room that needed additional Bass. I use 2 bass panels. They match the Maggies quickness and add warmth in the lower musical ranges without the boom and muddy effect. no they don't shake the floor. if that's what you want then yes add the subs. I also agree with the comment that: unfortunately the most important consideration of a streamer is a good app to run it. My Matrix Audio Element-i has been rock solid, but the Matric Audio Player to run from my I-pad has been a PITA. They are on their Third Version Update. They maybe improve one item and screw up three others. I spent 30 minutes finding how to get onto my Tidal account which was hidden behind a screen and then another 30 minutes to find my playlist which they buried in the least likley of places.
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