Clock vs Streamer advice

Awesome, thank you for the advice. 

@audphile1 not a real source I guess. I called Goodwins Audio in Massachusetts and am doing a demo with their N200. I believe he used the word "soon" when referring to Aurender and Roon. I am not sure if he knows more or less than anyone else. 

Thanks for the advice, so you are suggesting a better streamer will outweigh a computer->clock->dac?

@blisshifi thank you so much for the informative reply. I will try to demo the N200. 

Ya, I'm not a huge fan of the Aurender app. It's organization was good, but the connectivity could be a hassle. I'm currently using Roon, and I like it, but it's not a deal breaker for me whether or not I use it. 

I guess Aurender is close to being Roon compatible. I just called 2 different shops, and this weekend I'll be doing an a/b test with an Aurender N200 and the Melco. 

Actually, some are affordable for me. I was on a different site where they were more expensive, but the k21 looks to be $7k

I'm sure I'd have some love for Antipodes if even their cheapest streamer/server was at my price point 

Hey, sorry I haven’t responded in a bit.

I spent the weekend with the N200 and N1Z. Both were great. The N200 beat out the N1Z on certain albums, but I strangely found it more fatiguing for long sessions.

I did look into the network upgrade for my MC1, and they can do it. It sucks that I won’t be able to demo that before doing it, but I think I will go with that option. It is Roon ready, so I’ll be good to go. Looking through the forums, I haven’t seen anyone expressing disappointment with the network upgrade on their Bricasti.

That will save some money, and then I will demo the shunyata altaira. I live in an apartment currently, so I'm curious if a grounding hub will add a notable difference. 

@lalitk haha, my brain may have fatigued because I’m not used to such attention to detail

I will admit that I was listening with some bias. The used N1Z is the cheaper option. I was really hoping that I would prefer the N1Z to save some money, so maybe I tried to create a preference for it.

There were several albums where the difference was not notable. But when I listened to Glenn Gould, the Goldberg Variations, the N200 shined above. Then Billie Holiday. Her vocals have always sounded a bit harsh in my system. On the N1Z, it was slightly harsh, but with the N200, it was not. And then Tool’s Chocolate Chip Trip had another dimension on the N200 compared to the N1Z.

@audphile1 thank you for the input. I may wait and save a bit more for the N200. I have been pretty concerned about spending the $1500 when I can't demo it. And I was not very smart with my demo. The N1Z only has USB, and the N200 dealer let me borrow a $2500 MIT SPDIF cable. It was easy to just switch inputs on the DAC quickly by using just spdif on N200 and USB on N1Z. I didnt even try USB on the N200. 

I also can't stand the Aurender app, but I'll live with it. Every single time I went to pick a new song, it disconnected, so I had to go back and find where I was on the playlist. It was the same bullshit with my N100H. The guy at Goodwins Audio said its the same for him too.