Streamer only

I have the allo DigiOne Signature Streamer with a Shanti LPS. Do you hear a big difference between the DigiOne and your high end streamer? 

Thanks,

Steve

I am using the SMSL SD-9 as a streamer only. It also decodes MQA and sends it to your DAC already decoded. It supports Tidal and Qobuz and has a sods card slot that you can put a 256 GB memory card. It costs 399 dollars and sounds great. I am using it to feed a Musicians Pegasus DAC connected to a Wired 4 Sound STI-500 to Magnepan LRS speakers. It sound very detailed and reveals all the finer points in the music. It also connects to the internet using wireless WiFi. 

I’m using the Cambridge MXN10 into an Audio Research Reference CD9 cd player operated as a DAC. It cost $360 and sounds incredible.

I am using the Aurrender W20SE ($22K) streamer through the Audio Research Reference CD9SE as DAC and it sounds as good as my very good vinyl leg. Each step from a Mac book, to inexpensive streamer, to a $3K $5K, $10K, $13K, to my W20SE provided a very substantial improvement in sound quality, each worthy of the investment.

Going to add to the comments pile here because sometimes people are looking for an answer to their question, not justification for what others are doing.

First, forget using any computer. Streamers are too good and too cheap not to utilize them and any good system will easily show the difference in improvement.

Generally, I side with lower priced streamers for most. I have a high end tube monoblock system using a WiiM Pro with an external LPS for it. That’s a cost under $250. It goes to optical audio to an RME ADI-2. It is fabulous.

I learned in my wifi heavy area that the toslink is better sound quality (using a glass toslink cable) than coax to the DAC. The RME ADI-2 is able to play streams via BOTH inputs at 192K.

The WiiM Pro deployed with an external LPS puts it on par if not better than the other options listed here. You simply can’t go wrong with it. My full range system never sounded better. (I also have a fiber optic connection now and that was a very nice boost to the overall streaming quality. In addition I use Cisco network switches cascaded to the WiiM Pro streamer with fiber optic cable between them. Another very nice bump in quality.)

The Optical Rendu option is also an excellent product that meets your $1,000 budget. Last, Blue Jean ethernet cables are top notch and inexpensive. Don’t go down that ethernet cable rabbit hole.

Happy listening!