Looking for best streamer without DAC under $3500

Lumin U1 mini

@dznutz  Would it be silly to get a D2 and use as a streamer? There's one on Audiogon for $1750 right now. I see it has a BNC/Coax.

Not silly at all, the added flexibility may come in handy at some point.

Right on. I may just have to pull the trigger on that.

How familiar are you with Lumin products? 

I enjoy the Metrum and tried a Mytek Brookyln for a short time but found it too be too bright/clinical sounding. But as most of us in this hobby, it's fun to upgrade to the next and best. I don't have the luxury of being able to demo to compare. 

I honestly doubt the D2 would better your onyx/ambre combo.
Different yes
Better ? in the ears of the beholder.

I have an Aurender N100 and tbh I have just changed to using Roon, running core on my computer and using a Sonore Microrendu as a bridge then straight into my MHDT Orchid DAC and that sounds slightly better to my ears. A little more air and easier to pick out instruments, not quite as dark as the N100.

In fact I was considering buying an Onyx/Ambre combo using i2s to see what that sounds like.

The N100 does allow the use of Spotify but the sq on that is blown away by Qobuz hires imho

I'm sure it won't sound better that's how I would just use it as a streamer, but it would be fun to compare as well. I'm only considering it because it's cheaper than the mini.

The Ambre is really good, i just want spotify among other aps and yes I do use Roon. 

Well its a fair price and you may find they would go down some given the current economic crisis.
I use Spotify on my phone only to play in the car as Qobuz beats it soundly in SQ at least in my system to my ears.
That said the Spotify catalog is larger than Qobuz so there is that for sure.

Has anyone compared the Lumin U1 Mini against the Auralic Aries G1?

OP
If you really want to try the D2, take a look at this
at the asking price it is just $1575 USD.

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649607429-lumin-d2-silver-trade-in/

I’d get a used Innuos Zen Mklll, which I’d think should provide some sonic upside. But if not, just turn around and sell it for little/no loss so very little risk involved and use those funds to buy a Pavane Level 3, which will certainly yield improvements.  That’s what I’d do. Best of luck.

Bricasti M5.  It sounds as good to me as my recently sold Aurender N10.  Small, Roon Ready, and great sounding after break in.

Happy to give a second vote for Innuous Zen
MK 3. Dave at Audio Doctor gave me a very good deal. With Roon I’m 100% happy!

+1 for Lumin U1 Mini.

Find a used lumin t2

NAD M10 

Have both a Lumin T2 and an Innuos Zenith MK3 and would highly recommend both.  I prefer the Lumin app and interface though so it would have the edge if I had to pick one.

+2 for LUMIN U1 mini. Made my Ayre QB-9 DSD DAC sound much clearer than USB from a music server.  

Why do you need a streamer like Aurlaic or a Lumin? Any 1 of these streamers mentioned above are just computers with some proprietary software. A few years back, I used the typical setup, a dedicated Auralic Aries hooked up to my external dac using USB and a few of the typical tweaks to usb. At the time, Aurlaic sounded better than the Lumin or Aurender streamers and had the best software on the iPad to control the Aries. 
I got rid of all that USB crap, the auralic Aries, and the external dac and went with a network attached dac, Roon running on a dedicated Mac mini, and the SQ is much better and the whole setup is much simpler.
My takeaways were: never use a computer/streamer in the audio room, never use USB if you want good sq, and get the best dac you can afford that uses ethernet or I2S interfaces.

My 2 cents......

Simaudio Moon Mind 2

https://simaudio.com/en/product/mind2-network-player/?v=7516fd43adaa

or

Bryston BDP-3

https://bryston.com/digital-audio/bdp3/

These retail at around 4K, but you can find them in your price range from several retailers.
I am currently using the Bryston (connected with AES). You can also find some pretty good deals on used v1 and v2 from time to time. I absolutely love the thing.  I also use Roon exclusively, so I can't speak to usefulness of the the Moon or Bryston app.

I have heard and liked the LUMIN U1 mini, I also love the look of it, my only issue with it was the switched power supply, so I never went down that road.

@rbstenho, what setup did you go to that utilizes I2S? I have a terminator with I2S and am looking for a streamer that utilizes I2S.

+1 rbstehno

Magna Mano Ultra i2s into DirectStream DAC.
You can run any music service you want.
If you just want to add Spotify a Blu N100 toslink out for $300 is plenty. Just ignore the WiFi and built in DAC - both shitty.

Have a look at the Antipodes range.
The onboard DAC is pretty good although you’ve said you don’t need it. I don’t use it but it’s there if required.
Prices are NZ dollars so the US exchange rate makes them very attractive.
Their after sales service/support is brilliant

Stream with computer and good dac via hdmi
Or usb is fine both have way more bandwidth than any hi res file can throw at them 

Snafujg,
   I’ve got a Terminator as well and like you am curious about the I2S input. Currently running a Roon Nucleus usb and sounds great to me, but curious about I2S. Anyone see an upside to I2S over USB? Also, are dedicated streamers better than my Nucleus?  Not trying to hijack the thread but maybe the Nucleus is a good option for OP.

Not sure about "best", I only know I am using a NUC7i5 with the ROCK operating system (provided for free by Roon) housed in Akasa Newton S7 Fanless case for 7th Generation Intel NUC Boards. It was challenging building, but fun and if you can follow instructions very doable. If it looks too hard then Nucleus (same operating system and uses a NUC) essentially does this for you. I am not looking back (totally satisfied), just a solid utility (just need to turn it on) that works really well; around $600 all in.  https://kb.roonlabs.com/ROCK:_Getting_Started

I use a Linn with ethernet connection.
Great sound, some linn streamers are in your price range.

Sonos

Why. Not build your own machine for several reasons much higher parts quality 
such as a a Jcat Femto clock usb card, a Jcat net card, SS hard drives 
a external Linear power supply .fanless heatpipe case like Synology or other cases. Mojo Audio build hot rod - best name brand parts  to whatever you require
it could cost up to $4k . Ben at Mojo Audio  knows Digital very well his quality 
and sonics with dacs, and servers is very well known in the industry and have won many show awards. We have dissected several name brand streamers even at $4-5 grand + and average at best parts .I don’t see dual Femto clocks in  other
products at this price or parts quality even close .like Sparkos
Descreet opamps ,Vishay naked resistors.Mojo Audio without question build great Linear power supplies in all their products, no switch mode power supplies. look up Belleson Super regulators ,the best out there .a seperate linesr power supply is critical to get the best sound and isolates the bower supply from the sensitive digital section. Like seperates ,you can put more quality in it.
in my dac alone there is 9 Belleson regulators, very $$ In the powersupply ,plus Mundorf 4 pole capacitors. Made in USA 45 day return policy on mojo design    ,5 year warranty and modular,updatable  .apples to apples ,no dealer mark up,all the money is going into the build. Who else out there  offers this ? Nobody I know of .check them out .

Just James, Here's a suggestion. Keep the Metrum Ambre. There is an SD card  inside with Roon on it that can be changed to an SD card with one of many streaming programs or services.Take $3299.99 and buy a Sonnet Morpheus DAC. You will be blown away! This is the engineer/owner of Metrum's new company. (Cees Ruetenburg) A continuation of his R2R technology. Same I2S connection as Ambre. Then sell the Onyx and pocket the cash!

Me...I'm on the cheap side of things. If I was looking for something which is a pure streamer, I would probably go with a Zen Mini and add the power supply. Darko loved it......

+1 rbstehno

For under $3.5k?  Easy, just get Node 2i for $500 and enjoy the $3k you save. Seriously. You need good user interface and functionality, such as ability to integrate with streaming services, external disk, user interface to play your selections. Like @rbstehno said, this is just a specialized computer. $3.5 is more than you'd pay for the newest full-featured MacBook Pro!

I’d look hard at a used Aurender ACS10 which has a built in ripper and sounds great. Excellent build and the operating program is great. It’s an elegant solution if it fits your bill but it will need to be used to be near budget. 

My Lumin U1 mini works exceptionally well with my Chord Qutest as a Roon endpoint streaming Qobuz or local files from my MacBook or Qobuz or local files from my iPhone Lumin App...  It just always works...

$4k for a computer? The only reason why somebody would do this IMO is because they are stuck using usb and they need to get the best performance possible out of a flawed interface. SSD for music, also overkill. Again, the only reason for using ssd is because you need to place a server in your audio room and you need to have the system as quiet as possible. Save the $4k, get a 5-8 year old Mac with an internal 500GB ssd to run roon, get a good couple of TB drives to store music on and for backup (or create your own raid 1), and place in t anywhere in your house except the audio room. Then go get a great dac That has an Ethernet connection and you will be in good shape.
If you buy any proprietary server, who is going to support this? If you buy an Apple, thousands of Apple geniuses in person or on the phone can help. If you buy a proprietary server which probably runs some kind of Linux OS, how are you going to backup the attached disks, and worse, how are you going to restore your ripped data if a disk crashes (ssd or hdd disk will crash).
There are quite a few people that promote this on different sites

If you can find one, a used Innous Zenith MKII would work just fine, and it can host Roon Core.  

What???? Oh boy don't agree but to each their own. I used a Mac a while and thought it was pretty good until I tried some other options. The computer's background processes create a ton of noise and so do the power supplies which feed back into your electrical grid. Why does Taiko Extreme sell like hotcakes for $20,000 or the Innuous Statement for $15k? Because they sound better. To OP: Lumin U1 Mini. Love mine! Versatile and quiet which is way better than the Mac I used to use - its more settled and quiet. More of a high end source than a computer.

Well folks, I have my two cents, considering the 2 million cents already expended on this thread, wash your hands and good night ! 

Owl-did you read the review of the innuous in last months TAS? It wasn’t that great, it came across as a work in progress review.
when was the last time you auditioned a Mac mini using Ethernet to a great dac? Probably never. Like I mentioned earlier, most of the people doing $5k-$15k servers are hooking them up To a dac using usb and trying to get usb to sound good. Also, these same people are putting these servers in their audio room so they have to perform tricks to keep everything silent.

+1 on the BDP-3 .  I got the Pi and like it very much

Very happy with Synology NAS> Minimserver >Auralic Aries G1>Audience FrontRow USB>Chord Qutest 

the Oppo players have ability to stream Tidal and you can use an outboard DAC if needed. sound very good. i still prefer flac files stored on a hard drive to streaming. i don’t see the point in spending thousands just to hear the White Album again.  however i can see the point in exploring a lot of new music. but for SQ maybe i am missing something?  if so how does streaming trump physical media?

When visiting the XFI Premium hifi show in Holland late last year I found myself in the a room that Aurender and dCS were sharing. I eventually managed to chat to two guys together each representing their respective companies.
This turned into a lengthy conversation because there was much I did not understand and surprisingly even the Aurender rep. agreed that the dCS Network Bridge was superior. A stranger joined our little group who owned a dCS N/B and claimed he extensively auditioned at home a few top streamers before deciding.

Although I did not get to hear the dCS unit, I did hear on more than one occasion in other rooms, an Aurender being used to demo some very expensive kit.
Some of this was mesmerising and decided that day to look out for a used Network Bridge. I returned home and immediately set about checking out reviews on the net. All of them rave about it.

Raspberry Pi + Volumio + Spotify plugin. Total: 125$ including metal case and Samsung EVO Micro-SD card.

Volumio is using standard and ultra-flexible MPD (Music Player Daemon). I’ve used it since many years. It has nice Web interface, and since it’s mpd, i can use any mpd client with it: I have on on my cell, ncmpcpp (shell based) on my Linux laptop, etc.
The raspberry is plugged on my Rega DAC-R and works perfectly. I listen 95% FLAC, 5% online streaming.

My equipment: Intel NUC Mini 7i5BNH i5-7260U DDR NUC7i5BNH in the place of a Roon Nucleus that I used to use.  My purpose:  Using Roon to stream Tidal and mostly to explore for new music.  My accompanying DAC a tubed Cary Audio 200ts.  With this DAC connected to an Oppo UDP-203 player, I can listen to music either via CD or streamed.  The sound quality is great, but I am having issues with Roon streaming Tidal, sometimes it works and sometimes not, i.e., sometimes Roon just cannot make Tidal play.  I noticed the reference here to using Spotify by others.  Does Spotify have the same sound quality as Tidal, where if you upgrade to 19.99 a month, you get hi resolution quality?  But insights on how to get Roon proprietary software to mesh with Tidal software would be an eye opener, if you can fill that in.  Cheers.       

@ rbstehno  could you explain us what do you mean by "usb crap" please?  It's just a digital interface and DAC with USB Async mode exists since years...
I've listened to many high end sound systems driven by USB DAC including Meitner and the results were stunning...
I recycled an Atom mini server for my friend and installed on it Debian + MPD.  It is hooked to Ayre QB9, Krell KRC-3, Krell KSA-200s and Dynaudio Speakers: Wow factor is much present!

+1 for Lumin U1 mini
I run mine with a MHDT, or Mojo dac and it is fantastic.

Well, this thread was interesting to say the least. Lot of talk about USB, but I didn't mention that in my post and that has no baring on my decision considering it's not usually the best connection to begin with.

I went with a Lumin T2...

Cheers.

the guy ranting about USB is just plain wrong. Done right, like any other interface, can sound wonderful.

$20K to deliver digital sounds like somebody has more money than sense.

If you want to use Roon why not get the box specifically designed to do that, a Nucleus. Everything about it is designed and optimized to do just that. The software is written specifically to run Roon and as mentioned, you don't have all of that background crap running like a Windows or Osx based system.

For the person having trouble streaming Tidal with Roon that sounds like a one-off issue. I am currently running Roon on a Mac Mini streaming hours at a time with zero hiccups. Are you sure it is a Roon issue or is it an issue with your DIY server? Try one of the other services like Qobuz that have a free trial and see if they have issues.

I’m entering the discussion late, but I am still perplexed about the whole streamer/DAC issue.  A few months ago, I A/B’d my Bluesound Node 2 streamer with the Aurender N100 running through the DAC in my Hegel H190.  I wanted to love the Aurender because I could have bought it for a great price.  I confess that the build quality of the Aurender, but try as I might, I could detect no difference in sound quality over a broad spectrum of music.  I ultimately decided to stick with the Bluesound.  I have since upgraded my system and am streaming my Bluesound Node 2 into a Chord Qutest DAC that connects with a Prima Luna preamp that are run by an old, but sweet, YBA Passion 400 Amp.  My speakers are Harbeth 30.2s.  I love my system, but am still wonder, as all Of us crazy audiophiles do, whether the holy grail of streamers will make a difference.  I should add by the way, that I have the Bluesound Node 2 running through the Chord DAC and also streaming through its own DAC into the PL.  I notice more air in the Chord, but can’t say it knocks my socks off.  All of this is predicate to the question of how much to streamers and DACs really matter.  To the extent that A/B’ing is the closest I can get to a scientific assessment, I am left only with questions.  And finally, all of this being said, my system still sounds sweet!  I am fascinated by all of the discussion and look forward to any thoughts folks might have.

@sfseay What "break in" are you talking about? The Bricasti is just taking bits on network, de-encapsulate / uncompress the payload and send it out to DAC. It's as simple as that, just digital bits in and out, no more no less.  No