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New Streamer, DAC or Let it Be

Hello.  I am at a crossroads and interested in soliciting suggestions on a streamer and/or DAC upgrade using your collective experience.  My focus is actually home theatre, with perhaps 20% of the time devoted to music.  The space is my wife's office by day, my home theatre/ listening room by night, and furniture placement, windows, doors, etc. cannot be moved; it is what it is. 

Equipment is a Marantz AV8805A processor, Parasound A51 amp and new Focal Kanta 2 speakers.  My streamer is a Bluesound Node with upgraded internal power supply and external LPS, and Gustard U18 DDC feeding a Gustard X26 PRO DAC with SR purple fuse.  The Node upgrades made a very positive difference, and addition of the Gustard U18 was a noticeable and very welcome upgrade as well.  My frame of reference/ comparison are CDs from a modest collection played on an Oppo BD103, fed to the Marantz via HDMI (I tried Toslink and Coax but HDMI to the Marantz sounded best).  I stream a variety of music using Qobuz and the Bluesound app on my phone.  The app is OK but despite a trumpeted recent upgrade, Bluesound has not yet resolved something as simple as the ability to organize Favorites by Artist or Album; they appear in the reverse order added, which is nuts.  The various digital upgrades have made streaming sound just about as good as the CD.  Here’s the dilemma.

I live vicariously through your experience with the enormous breadth of quality digital equipment out there.  I am not necessarily looking to throw money at something I do infrequently, yet am driven by the unknown: will an upgrade provide added pleasure and justify enhancements equal to the expense for the limited time I listen to music?  Obviously, a therapist could help, but I trust many of you have been down this road and can offer insight.  My questions are, would a streamer upgrade alone take me to the next level?  Is a DAC upgrade instead the better path?  Or, am I chasing unicorns, and is my humble setup good enough, to simply let it be?  I learned never to say never, but the likelihood of an investment now and then further upgrades down the road is unlikely, as the wife has zero patience and appreciation for all this.  As to existing equipment, the Marantz and Parasound aren’t going anywhere, and I am very happy with the Kantas.  Any purchase will likely be via the used market, to mitigate costs.  My budget is in the $3K range (preferably less, usually more), which is what I was looking at for a used/ open box Aurender N150.  I am by no means limiting myself to just that brand or model streamer, and have not scratched the surface on a DAC, should that happen.

Thanks for your time and any experience/ suggestions you might share.

traubr

Showing 1 response by panzrwagn

panzrwagn's avatar
panzrwagn
449 posts
 

The BlueSound Node is the Honda Accord of streamers. Affordable, works and sounds better than most give it credit for, and about as reliable as any piece of hardware gets.

I won’t trash your Marantz because most of the criticisms are either speculative, or simply irrelevant (What difference does 10 dB improvement in dynamic range or noise from 80 to 90 dB make when the noise floor in your room limits dynamic range to maybe 60 dB? I live in a very quiet house, and the noise floor is 42dBA. My System is capable of peak output of about 110 dB, but my usual listening level is around 90. So, 90-42 = 48dB typical, 68 db maximum dynamic range). Your Marantz is a great piece of equipment and while Marantz and Denon are sister brands and do share a lot of parts, a high-end Marantz is a totally different and much more carefully engineered component than their mid-fi offerings. That just doesn’t fit the ego-fi narrative.

Yes, room correction does happen in the digital domain, and most find it a worthwhile option. But even the best room correction, speaker placement, components and cables can only effect the input of the system into your room. It is the output of the room predominates what your hear, and improvements made in that function are almost universally the biggest value to be had in upgrades. Consider some acoustic treatments - sidewalls first, then bass traps, and ceiling. Profound improvements can be made in most listening spaces for under $1000 with packages from companies like Acoustimac. Their options for color and finish also enable a high degree of SAF. Acoustics is applied physics, and applied physics is math, so use their, or other online calculators, to determine your actual requirements. 

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