Next step up on the streaming food chain?


I’ve been enjoying my Auralic Aries G1 for nearly 3 years now. If I wanted to explore a significant step up in my streaming quality, and not a small incremental increase in quality, what devices should be on my short list? Aries G2.2? Grimm MU1? Something else? The G1 is awfully good, however, I still perceive an extra layer of dimensionality and roundness with my analogs set up (see profile for details) that I would love too achieve in the digital realm. Or am I barking up the wrong tree, and should I focus on my DAC, a Bricasti M1, and try as non-oversampling R2R dac? FWIW, I think the Bricasti is excellent- it was the first DAC I ever heard that made me say- "that sounds terrific" instead of saying "that sounds great for digital"

128x128zavato

Innuos zenith mk3 Is how I roll. And Kenny is right about this one, the ethernet feed and the various clean-up steps for it are most important in getting a clean undistorted signal. Without it, digital can be fatiguing and not as satisfying as analog. It can be overwhelming to get there. By example I use high quality Freedom ethernet cables, optical isolation with LPS and an ethernet switch before the streamer. Then high quality USB cable to DDS then I2s connection to dac. And a master clock connected via sine wave to the switch, DDS and dac. There is absolutely no question that the resulting sound matches my excellent analog rig. Enjoy the journey.

Cant have this conversation without mentioning the two gorillas, Wadax and Taiko.  Can't justify the cost at this point for the Wadax, but maybe someday.

 Disagree strongly with audiotroy - had an Innuous server in house (think it was the Zenith - was their $15-20k model) and the Aurender W20 smoked it. (Its also strange that he so strongly recommends a random Belgium made server he happens to sell as superior to products 3-4x the price.  Can't comment specifically on the product, since I have never heard it, but if you check out their web site, its got some goofy stuff even by audiophile standards).

I have Grimm MU1. I haven’t compared to Auralic but was a huge upgrade to Innuos Zenith MK3.

Edit to add:  I don't think Auralic does Roon.  Grimm does not work without roon.  so it may not be a good choice for you.

Dimensionality and roundness are not quantifiable properties. Figments of the OP's imagination!