Point of higher priced streamer?

I am 100% SURE there are sonic differences but like anything else in Hi-Fi, is it worth north of $10K vs south of $0.5K ?  Only you can answer that question of value.. Just like automobiles:  Toyota /Ford SUV's are excellent (@ around $50K)  yet there's the Rolls Royce Cullinan (@ $400K +).  I am sure RR is "better".. If all that matters is it is better without regard for cost, RR should be selling hundreds of thousands of units of the Cullinan.. But they are not.. They are selling around 5000 units.  Bottom line, we have options and it all depends on your preferences and pocket book. 

Iron lung,

You are distorting reality to suit your desired outcome. IF there were packet sized dropouts in audio due to UDP/WiFi then you absolutely would hear clicks and pops and breaks. If that happens you know you have a problem. It’s not a matter of well maybe my WiFi does not sound as good. It works or it does not.  Noise in chipsets is just noise in this discussion.


Starting with wired the typical home network has near 0 data loss. Effectively 0 wrt audio usage. WRT wireless the streaming protocols build in bufferering and retry. Data loss absolutely occurs but streaming protocols handle that on packet and encapsulated data sets. If you had a dropout you would have clicks and pops just like your have stuttering on video streaming or block artifacts from incomplete data. It is very obvious when data is lost.

I laugh at your comment ironlung, because you telegraphed the thinness of your knowledge and position when you said you switched out WiFi for wired due to DROPOUTS. Not a perceived loss of quality but DROPOUTS.

i have 2 streamers, a node & a marantz in the same system.
i prefer the marantz. one day i came home & my 15 y/o had the system sorta loud & was using the node, it sounded awesome.
he explained to me that the node wasn’t quite as efficient as the marantz, allowing him to turn up the amp & get more gain.
(he is a big guitar player & loves his guitar amps with tubes). he told me turning up the power on the amp, because the node wasn’t as efficient, allowed him the get more gain from the amp by turning up the power to the amp. and that the human ear lives gain, that’s why it sounded different. he’s 15. maybe, maybe not.
im really working on moving him from Tool to Stevie Ray Vaughan. we all have our battles.
 

Don’t waste your money. There are no differences in the digital packets. I built few pi3 B+ with hifiberry Digi based streamers. They are doing tremendous job streaming hi-res files from my NAS drive and internet.
Spend your money on the DAC, speakers, and room acoustics. 

I have a Node 2i as well as an expensive Moon 680D DAC with the internal MIND streamer.  I have done a direct compare.  As such, there is a very noticeable difference streaming from the higher end streamer vs streaming from the Bluesound player.