Sound quality differences in streamers


Can there be sonic differences between moderate and high priced streamers when used for streaming only. I will not use or engage an onboard DAC or any other feature, just stream from Tidal or Amazon to DAC. If the unit is just transferring zeros and ones to a DAC can there be differences in say a $300 WiiM and a $3000 dSC streamer? Thanks

kckrs

Showing 1 response by hdm

I have no trouble believing there are qualitative differences between streamers. My own experience with a Wiim Pro Plus (as streamer only) and a decent quality R-core linear power supply has shown me that the Pro Plus can be seriously improved with the use of such a power supply.

That's the beauty of some of these inexpensive 5V streamers-they can be improved upon pretty substantially with a high quality but low price power supply. The question then becomes at what kind of a price point do the laws of diminishing returns kick in. 

Here's a link to a review suggesting that a Wiim Mini with quality LPS came very close to a $2500 Lumin: 

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/a-tale-of-two-streamers-r1159/

 

Not bad!

 

The Aurender stuff looks extremely well put together to me once you get up into the $2K to $4k range. I'd be curious to hear one of those, but all in all, I am pretty happy with the results I'm getting in the cheap end of the gene pool, and that's compared to a $10K+ (not that I paid that for it) analog front end. 

My analog is definitely better, but with the right mastering/recording the results here represent a very high value for dollar proposition with pretty inexpensive streaming/digital within a relatively good system.