Agree..DAC is first. I have a $15000 McIntosh integrated amplifier with DAC and phono stage. Think of this as a $6000 amp..$6000 preamp and$1500 each for phono and DAC. I purchased a $5500 DAC which was much more musical than the integrated DAC. I’ve listened to the Rega Apollo and the little Rega’s DAC sounded good for the price and I’ve never heard the Saturn. I ripped my CDs to a NAS and used the CD player money to buy other components.
First Streamer...
Hi,
I'm planning to buy my first streamer.
Honestly, I have no idea which brand of streamer to purchase and would welcome suggestions.
I'd like to use my android phone to select material which will be played through a Audio Research VSi60 amp and homemade Zaph Audio ZRT Revelator speakers. My CD player ( a Rega Saturn) has a DAC which could be used for streaming.
Any suggestions?
I'm looking to stream TIDAL using Verizon's Fios service and spend under $2000.
Showing 4 responses by vonhelmholtz
"you’ll get the usual DAC is everything advice. In my opinion @ghdprentice provided you good counsel. The quality of the streamer is important and will definitely impact the sound quality" DAC first doesn't suggest that the streamer isn't important. In my system I put DAC first and use an iFi Zen Stream with iFi's $250 power supply, $50 to use fiber optics to filter out ethernet noise and it all sounds very musical. I will replace the iFi when I have the money, but I'm happy with the iFi. |
I forgot to mention that PS Audio is two months from introducing their $2K AirLens streamer. There are over 2000 post on their AirLens thread. The selling point is that all input and outputs are galvanically isolated and it has I2s out. I2s has been promoted by PS Audio for some time. I’ll be watching reviews. It looks promising. PS Audio has a 30 day no questions asked return window. |