Lyngdorf TDAI-3400

I had the TDAI-3400 for about a year and used only the on board DAC for streaming (Innuous Zenith III) and was pretty happy with it until I tried the Mytek Manhattan 2 DAC.  It's a lot more expensive as a stand alone DAC but the improvements in sound were profound.  
My point is that you might want to explore some stand alone DACs to get the best sound from this amp.  The Schitt Yggy is a high bang for the buck DAC as one example.  Mytek Brooklyn is another one to consider.  Buy one from a seller that allows a trial and the risk is low.
A stand alone music server will also sound much better than streaming directly into the Lyngdorf.  

I am very late to this party, but I just purchased a TDAI-3400.

Until a few weeks ago, prior to moving into a new house, I had been listening exclusively to losslessly ripped CDs, played in Apple Music/iTunes --> NAD M51 DAC --> Pass XA30.5 --> Spatial Audio M1 Turbo S speakers. It is a great setup that sounded fantastic for many years in my old house. However, in the new house, it sounded completely different. Most notably, the soundstage was compressed, the bass was severely lacking, and something was off about the lower midrange.  

I have one media wall in the new house with the one audio system for television, movies and music. In this house room treatment is not an option and speaker placement is limited. In researching room correction software, the Lyngdorf caught my attention. That gave me "the bug" and got me interested in streaming, which I had never incorporated, which got me looking at a number of all-in-one units. But Lyngdorf's Room Perfect put it in the top spot for  to try.

My initial thought was to use something like the Lyngdorf standalone for TV and movies, but output to the Pass amplifier for critical music listening. Based on recommendations in one of the posts on this site, I contacted Neal Van Berg at Sound Science, a Lyngdorf dealer. He was awesome to speak with, fully supported my idea and allowed me to do an in-home trial, and provided lots of help and insights along the way.

I set up the Lyngdorf and ran Room Perfect. It could not have been easier, and the difference it made blew my mind. I wasn't expecting it to be that profound. But what was more surprising to me is this. I had just assumed the Pass amp would sound much better than the TDAI for destination music listening. And I do prefer the Pass on some music - especially some favorite female vocals, for example. But the more I go back and forth between listening to Lyngdorf-->Pass vs. Lyngdorf on its own, the more I am enjoying the complete Lyngdorf sound. I would say that it is at least as enjoyable as the Pass on a lot if not most music I listen to.

I'm also having a blast with Tidal and Qobuz via Roon as well. In fact, I am listening to more music now than I have in a long time. And there is  nothing fatiguing about the TDAI's sound, which seems to be a common concern with Class D. I find the Lyngdorf sound to be quite open, natural and relaxed. And there are numerous ways it allows you to tweak your sound through voicings you can customize via parametric EQ.

Conclusion: I plan to keep the Pass amp for certain listening sessions, but if the Pass had to go away I could be very happy with the TDAI-3400 on its own. I am keeping it.

Hi all,

I am thinking of getting the TDAI-3400 as an all in one unit and plug in a USB stick or HDD and let it play my music files.  Is the unit processing powerful enough to make music selection / playing a smooth experience compared to Roon?

I am also look at the Naim Uniti Nova as another choice..

Thanks!

I have the 2170 and ran a Denafrips Terminator into the high-end analog module and it was only a slight improvement over the internal DAC. I used a SMG i5 as a Roon core, Sonore UltraRendu, Denafrips GAIA DDC. So when I removed the Terminator I just went SPDIF from the DDC and also USB straight from the UltraRendu. Either way the Terminator sounded a little better but not really enough to justify its price tag.