I believe it can, but I’m not a Roon guy so definitely worth checking. Just to be clear, I was recommending the newer Pulse Mini and not the Zen Mini that you ordered before. The Pulse Mini doesn’t have an onboard CD drive or internal storage like the Zen Mini if that’s important.
Digital Dilemma
I purchased an inexpensive Onkyo C-7030 CD Player more as just a transport, but also to use as a benchmark to compare to streaming music on-line. With intentions to get the streamed content to sound as good, if not better, than the CD player could muster.
After sitting my wife down for a listen (she has better ears than me) and playing Tidal, Quboz and then the same tracks on a CD, the CD was the clear winner every time. It also seems the CD playing without using the Gustard R26 DAC didn’t even sound all that much better than when played through the CD Player only, bypassing the R26. That doesn’t say too much for the R26 DAC or alternatively, it says a lot for the DAC in the CD Player!
I am using the R26 as the renderer via a LAN connection that is optically isolated. There are a few filters and adjustments on the DAC, but tweaking those still didn’t get the sound quality up to that of the CD Player.
A lot of you say you have achieved streaming that sounds as good as your analogue systems. What do you think, do I need a betted DAC?
Showing 7 responses by soix
While the Zen Stream is very good for the $, if you can swing $1250 I’d strongly recommend looking at the new Innuos Pulse Mini. Not only will it likely sound even better, it’s compatible with most anything and their Sense app is light years ahead of iFi in sound quality, ease of use, etc.. And they offer excellent customer service while iFi’s is basically non existent. I own the Zen Stream, but if the Pulse Mini was at all in my budget it’s a no brainer IMO. |
+1 @kairosman Adding a DDC (Denafrips Iris) and switching to the i2S connection on my Musician DAC brought the sound to a much higher level entirely — not even close, and this was using a $6.50 6” HDMI cable from Monoprice. I haven’t upgraded to a better external clock yet but it’s definitely in my future. The nice thing is you can do these upgrades in steps over time rather than having to dump big $$$ on a better DAC upfront. |
I’d recommend not overcomplicating this upfront and just start with the streamer and decent USB cable and see how that works for you. The upgraded power supply, clock, etc. can all be added later and give you something to look forward to for further meaningful improvements down the road. |
Well, I got an iFi Zen Stream that retails for $399 along with their iPowerX power supply that’s around $100 I think, and it elevated my streaming performance to an entirely higher level. I actually ended up buying a USB cable from LavriCable that uses silver conductors and physically separates the power and data legs for better performance. These are features usually only found in much pricier cables, and as I was very impressed with their balanced interconnects and headphone cable I bought from them I just decided to stick with them for the USB cable. Others who’ve bought LavriCables here also feel they offer very high performance/$. Anyway, here’s the one I bought… https://www.lavricables.com/cables/ultimate-silver-dual-usb-a-b-interconnect-cable/ While the iFi Zen Stream also provides a lot of performance/$, I only recommend it with a few caveats: - Either hardwire it to your router or use a Wi-Fi extender or mesh system and hardwire the Zen from that. I found its Wi-Fi performance to be spotty and very frustrating, and hardwiring to it via an Ethernet, CAT7, etc. cable sounds better as well. - iFi customer support is virtually non existent so don’t count on any help from them. Fortunately you can get questions answered here or by doing a Google search, but as long as you hardwire to the Zen Stream you’d probably have little need for support. That said, I think the Zen Stream is excellent for the price, and you’d probably need to spend well over $1000 on an Innuos, Lumin, etc. streamer to get significantly better performance. Anyway, hope this helps. |