I had a serious week of listening and playing with the auralic Altair G1. After listening to it for the first day, I kept going between CD/SACD on my 15 year old CDSD transport/DCC2 dac/pre and realized I much preferred listening to my older equipment. I found the Altair too forward and the soundstage compressed. Highs were a bit shrill and although it had more details/resolution, it was much less engaging, less immersive and not as easy to listen as the DCC2. I found it fatiguing after many hours. Then, when my dealer came to pick it up after the week, he brought the AURALiC ARIES G2.1 (streamer only) which we plugged into my DCC2 with AES output. Suddenly, I realized the potential of streaming and how important the network bridge is, as the music became more open, engaging and sounded much closer to playing CDs in my system. The only problem was the DCC2 has to be manually set to 44.1 vs 48kHz, which was a pain as my playlist had a mix of FLAC/MQA and I couldn't send DSF files through the AES input. But it showed me that to replace what I am used to may take a bigger investment on a single (all in one streamer/DAC) or two boxes (streamer + DAC). The hunt continues, but challenging in the time of COVID when I can't leave my "Atlantic bubble" without quarantine upon return for 14 days.
Recommendations for a network streamer for my system playing Tidal Masters
I am looking for a high-end network streamer possibly with a built-in DAC to add to my audio system primarily to play Tidal Master (MQA) (Qobuz not available in Canada), as I finally want to get away from using CDs. I am not intending on ripping my old CDs or running a NAS necessarily.
My system is from 2005 and includes:
emmlabs CDSD (CD/SACD) transport
emmlabs DCC2 DAC/preamp
Lamm M1.2 monoblock amps
Kharma Midi-Grand céramique 3-way speakers
Ultimately I am looking for a network streamer that will be able to play Tidal Masters (not necessarily MQA) with a natural and musical sound quality that will complement the type of components I have.
First, I was wondering about just a network streamer and optically connecting to DCC2 as my DAC/preamp but worry that some of the current DACs within network streamer players may produce a better result for streaming than using my DCC2 given the progress in DACs in the last 15y. But, I was wondering using the emmlabs NS-1 and connecting optically to the DCC2, but don't know how that well that would work. Alternatively, using the simaudio MiND2 streamer and optically connect to my DCC2, as a signifcantly cheaper alternative to the NS-1.
Alternatively, going with a network streamer/DAC player I want to keep my budget at below $10K. I live in a smaller city and don't have many stereo stores to audition equipment and with pandemic it is tough to travel to audition. Therefore, I am going to have to go without audition most likely. Based on reading I am thinking about things like:
simaudio moon 390;
auralic Altair G1
Auralic Vega G1 (or possibly G2.1)
esoteric N-05
aurender A10
Lumin T2
Mytek Brooklyn Bridge
Thanks for your help.
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