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PC+Dac or Streamer

As the CD sales is going down at my surrounding and no new albums on CD, planning to go streaming...Now the question is whether  quality of sound will be better on PC plus DAC or Streamer, I read in Linn's website that Streamer is better options but I see it is expensive, they are mentioning about convenience, controlling through phone or tablet, I am alright to walk to PC and select my paylist.
Would like to know if any gone through this road and selected which options, PC+Dac or Streamer
murgeshj

Showing 2 responses by big_greg

big_greg
6,567 posts
 
For me it's as much about convenience as sound quality.  I have a streamer in my office, but I hardly ever use it because it's a lot easier to play Tidal, Spotify, files from my network, etc. from my desktop since I'm sitting in front of it already.  I have two such systems, both with good DACs (a Wyred 4 Sound DAC 2 and a Mytek Liberty), and the sound quality is excellent. 

In my main system, there's no PC sitting in front of me, so I have a BlueSound Node 2.  I control that with a tablet (or my phone) and that is pretty convenient.  I'm feeding the signal from the Bluesound into an Auralic Vega DAC.  The sound quality is better than the other systems, but that's in large part because I also have better amps, preamp, and speakers in that system. 

You can have great sound quality either way.  I would be more concerned about convenience / ease of use and budget than whether one method sounds better than the other.
big_greg
6,567 posts
 
I have yet to have any issues with my BlueSound Node 2 either losing my library or dropping out on music, but I've only had it a couple of months. 

I have a strong wireless router and a wireless access point set up in my rack with a 4 port Ethernet hub that I have my Oppo UDP-203, AVP, BlueSound, and Roku connected to.  No issues with any of those devices streaming over wireless, even with Netflix 4K content.  I basically did the same thing in my bedroom and home office. 

WAPs are pretty inexpensive and easy to set up and Ethernet switches are cheap.
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