2. digital
  3. 181196-34300

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 1 response by macg19

macg19
689 posts
 

+1 for Bluesound. It competes really well against my much more expensive analogue front end and although I have not done any side-by-side comparisons, like @deadhead1000 said, I’m guessing I’d have to spend a LOT more (even used) to get substantially better.

I run mine wired but I honestly can't tell the difference between wireless and wired. Paul from PS Audio has a YouTube video on this...and he makes a good point. I ran my Amazon TV box over Wi-Fi for years into an OLED TV and just hardwired it - no difference at all.  BUT, it makes sense to hardwire especially if you have a bunch of devices in the household using Wi-Fi as most of us do.

 

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