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

@zavato I owned Auralic Aries G1 and it was overall a nice streamer. I found it to be slightly lean and “digital” sounding though. I also owned Bricasti M3 DAC.

I would recommend you focus on the streamer and leave the M1 alone - there’s more to be had there.

I own and really like the Aurender N200. Excellent streamer and sounds very natural. It was awesome with the Bricasti M3. I believe it will be a noticeable improvement over the Aries G1

 

@audphile1 

thsnk you got your suggestion, as you’ve owned the G1 and have had Bricasti experience 

And to add, I had Pass XP-22 and X260.8 with Aurender and Bricasti. I see you have Pass XP-20 and X250.8.