I was/am in the same boat. For me my goal is to get my macbook pro out of my music system, to access my music library from an external drive or nas, and to move into streaming. I was looking at aurender, oppo sonica dac, w4s modified sonos, green computer and sonore, bluesound and auralic. I ended up ordering a bluesound node 2 primarily because it seems to have the most streaming options. I dont want my hardware choice to limit what I stream and for some strange reason even the high end servers seem very limited in what they offer. Bluesound and Sonos have the most I am just turned off by sonos' lack of hardware refresh. Just ordered it last week so I cant say if it worked out or not. Good luck.
Looking for an All in One DAC/Streamer/Server
I don't own a separate DAC or a CD player with one that can be used. Rather than buy separates I am looking for a "single" box that will let me stream Tidal and have internal storage for ripping my CDs. My budget is flexible..to a point. At either end of my budget is the Bluesound Vault 2 and the Aurender A10. I have a couple of questions in this regard. First, what other single box units would you recommend within that price range? Secondly, just how much difference in sound quality is there between a $1200 unit like the blue sound and a $5500 unit like the Aurender? These devices do essentially the same thing and both seem to be highly regarded. What is the likely performance differences to be heard between these two players? I understand the law of diminishing returns with regard to high end gear and have experience with differences between $1200 speakers and $5000 speakers...and other components. But this streamer/server world is new to me. Not looking for solution to this first world problem necessarily but like to hear some opinions and the experiences of those who have made this addition to their system.
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