Streamer between Roon Nucleus Plus and DAC

I wrote a longer answer but Audiogo gremlins killed it.

Since you use fibre just before the DAC you can add a streamer and get the benefit of moving your Nucleus away from your audio systems. Now I am not sure if that has any benefit since I assume your Nucleus is silent.

Everything matters, but if you're looking to improve sound quality of your digital playback, the DAC is where most of the magic happens, and that's where I suggest you consider investing.

I had a Nucleus and an Aqua La Voce S3 DAC.  I replaced the DAC with a Rockna Wavedream Signature DAC, which resulted in a significant improvement in everything - dynamics, clarity, detail, soundstage, etc. 

Many reviews and end user testimonials said that the DAC would perform its best with the matching Wavedream NET server and connecting them via i2s.  Replacing the server was honestly somewhat disappointing.  The difference in sound quality, if any, was negligible.  The biggest upside to the Wavedream NET is that it has a very good CD transport that is completely isolated from the server and provides excellent sound quality when fed to the Wavedream DAC.  

I believe my DAC is good enough. I am curious as to whether or not I can feed it a better signal than directly from the Nucleus Plus. Of note, the optical interface only accepts USB.

@tcutter you have a fantastic DAC. I’m confused though…when you say you have usb from nucleus into some sort of a converter then fiber optic into DAC…do you actually mean optical cable? I don’t see any fiber optic inputs on MPD-8…can you be more specific? 

@tcutter 

I too am a Roonaholic.

When I first started with Roon, I had my Roon Nucleus with Sbooster LPS streaming to itself feeding a Chord Qutest via Curious USB cable. It made for an enjoyable combination. A few years later I acquired a Bricasti M5 network bridge acting as Roon endpoint, and had that feeding the Qutest via Kimber D60 Coax, and to my ears this made for a significant jump in sound quality. I then upgraded my DAC to a Rockna Wavelight, and this notched things up once again. Earlier this year I replaced my Bricasti M5 with a Hifi Rose RS130 utilized as Roon endpoint. And again enjoyed a significant boost in SQ and audio enjoyment, first via the Kimber D60, and now via Tubulus Consentus I2S cable into the Wavelight. Then last month introduced a Melco S100/2 network switch into the mix. And was able to notch things up yet again. Currently the Melco and Rose are connected via RJ45 terminated ethernet cable (Wireworld Starlight Cat 8). But both the Melco switch and Rose RS130 support fiber, and I do intend to experiment with fiber in the future. Bottom line, in my own experience, found the streamer to be a major piece of the puzzle with respect to sound quality.

@audphile1 Playback Designs has a proprietary system that is built into some of their source devices but is also available free-standing. It accepts a USB input and converts it to an optical signal called PLINK, which uses an ST cable and connects to the DAC. It is different from toslink. Two supposed advantages are galvanic isolation and the clock in the interface is the same as the clock in the DAC. https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/playback-designs-usb-x4/

@jazzman7 May I distill your comments to, "Consider getting a better Roon-ready streamer than the Nucleus Plus"?

@tcutter 

Yes. Most definitely, do consider getting a better Roon-ready streamer.

Cool. In this case, you’d need to try a streamer in your system and see if it beats this PB Designs proprietary USB to fiber optic converter with Nucleus. Some of the streamers sound better with their native processing than they do as Roon end points. Besides unless someone is very familiar with this PBD converter and how it impacts sound, it’s impossible to predict. Trying is the only way to be sure.

Roon recommends splitting the core and endpoint, hence I run the core in a NUC in my server rack and another NUC also running ROCK in my hifi rack. This one is mounted in an Akasa case and it looks and sounds really nice. I feed my DAC via USB to a DDC for 2CH and my AVR via HDMI for MCH.

I assume this means you are using a Nucleus into the old USB Stream device from PBD and are going into a PBD, Nagra or BAT DAC.  I am very familiar with that converter.  If that is the case, you may get some modest benefit from upgrading from the Nucleus as it tends to be a some what noisy device but it won't be huge as the PBD unit takes that noise away.  A streamer in the middle is unlikely to have an impact.  The biggest impact would be upgrading to a PBD streamer but that is not an inexpensive proposition as the MPS-X is $11.5K.  

I am obviously one of the small number of PBD dealers in the US.  

@verdantaudio

Thanks for the additional details. I believe the PBD USB-X4 is identical to the circuitry in the MPS-X and should provide the same benefits of clock synchrony and noise reduction. If this is true, then the signal from the MPS-X should be virtually identical to that provided by the USB – X4 with an outboard streamer. The power supply of the MPS-X may make a difference but I am using a Swagman Labs LPS with the USB-X4.

I think I’ll hold for now. Thanks to everybody for your thoughts.