My SACD Transport feeds so much better signal to my DAC compared with streaming end...


I mostly use Roon to stream my 2000+ album digital collection with Bluesound Node + Ideon 3R Master Time reclocker + Ideon Ayazi MKII DAC. Recently I got a used PS Audio PerfectWave SACD Transport to rediscover my CD collection from years ago that my parents brought back to me from their home, which I have not touched for a very long time. I thought the 3R reclocker would clean up much of the signal from the Bluesound to the extent that streaming will not sound much worse than CD -- Indeed, I have been satisfied with its performance. I was wrong. The CD playback experience totally blew me away. Much darker background, much better soundstage and depth, lots of details, and better dynamics with great authority... I guess you really need a good streamer to catch disc playback! At any rate, I plan to upgrade my front end to one that works with the SACD Transport's I2S output so that I can enjoy my SACDs as well...

joyceulysses

Showing 2 responses by sls883

Have you tried streaming without Roon?  If you use Qobuz, for example, stream from their service directly without Roon. I tried Roon and I didn't like the sound with my gear.  My system is not optimized for Roon. 

@joyceulysses I had a Node before my Innuos.  My son has it now.  I've run Qobuz on a tablet.  My son runs Qobuz on his phone.  I've also used Audivarna on a laptop and used the streamer in my dac.  In my system, Audivarna sounded better than Roon.  It could be that I didn't have things optimized correctly.  Idk. I have read that Roon requires a lot of computing power to sound it's best.  I don't have that.  I loved the interface and wanted it to work, but in my system, it sounded flatter than the other options.

I mentioned it because it should be easy to put Qobuz or Amazon on your phone or a tablet. You don't need Qobuz connect.