Recommendations for good sounding streamer


I am looking for a decent sounding streamer without breaking the bank. My daughter has Spotify premium and it would be nice to connect up to my audio system (de Havilland UltraVerve tube preamp, McCormack DNA-1 amp, Martin Logan SL3s).

I mostly listen to vinyl (Pro-ject RPM5) and CDs (Ultech UCD100) using the internal DAC. I do have a V90 DAC however that I used for playing digital from my phone. 

I don't really have the money any more for expensive digital playback. So what a recommendations for bang for the buck system. Could include using my V90 DAC. 

Reading through the forum here it seems that Spotify is not the best quality digital (Tidal seems to come up a lot). But for now we have tons of Spotify playlists - just looking for an affordable way. 

Some considerations:

Bluesound NODE 3

iFi Zen Stream

Any others? Pros/cons?

1trackmind

Showing 2 responses by fuzztone

Personally I would stay away from WiiM and the Unison as the both lack USB local play (there is no substitute.) Although when the network goes down (as it seems to weekly around here) nothing can be controlled with ANY "network" player. You might want to find something that adds Bluetooth so she can at least listen to Spotify from her phone during those instances.

The iFi looks like the best value but I only have a Bluesound, Allo USBridge Sig/Shant and a RasPi/iFi Elite in the budget space, so I can't comment on it's functionality.