Streamer Recommendations


I am looking at streamers. I am building a system from scratch so I don’t have one I am replacing. I have heard of the brands but not sure how they compare. From my research the software that the streamer comes with is also important. Is their a streamer that is modular that you could upgrade later on? I don’t mind purchasing used and can spend up to 2k.

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I love my Innuos Zenith MK-3. It has a great interface 

it for sure sounds better then Roon 

if you want to rip any cd it has a excellent Teac drive a Solidstate drive under that 

and it has 3 independant Linear Power Supplies, the whole chassis,drives and even feet are built for vibration isolation  the less expensive Zen still has dual LPS power supplies  and Mundorfs best MLytic capacitors ,plus Nichicon and very good quality build throughout .some complain it is slightly warmer then neutral 

I am using the Exceptional Tubulus digital cables throughout , many digital records are not the best  with this combination Digital- Analog sound and still very good detail . Anthony at Perrotta consultants  excellent service as well as pricing.

No one mentioned the impressions with an Eversolo DMP-A8. I can do it for you. A double power unit, great DAC with AKMs, works with digital and analog outs, but it has its own great DAC. Beautiful large display! I have hooked it directly to the Benchmark AHB2 and power Focals Aria 948s. Great listening to Qobuz or Tidal.

The eversolo a 10 is out now 3600$ have not heard it yet but I like my a8.they are a great bang for the buck.fairly easy to use.enjoy the hunt.my a8 was 1800$  and I thought worth it 

When I got an external streamer 8 years ago (instead of using Pure Music and Audirvana), I auditioned Auralic, Aurender, and Lumin, and bought the Auralic Aries with the Lightning DS software. SQ was better and the Lightning DS software was far superior. Since I had a very good external dac, I used the usb interface and started buying all the usb tweaks/gimmicks to make it sound better, some did, most didn’t.

Fast forward and bought a top tier dac that uses Ethernet and I2S with both superior to USB and i2s being the best. Since I’m not a fan of using a server that runs Roon or audirvana in my audio room (runs in another part of the house), I use a streamer that accepts data from the server thru the network, and galvanic isolates the signal going out i2s to the dac, that’s its only function I life.

The software that reads the files is the main contributor to how good the music sounds and it’s the software that allows how easy it is to navigate thru your music. Audirvana still holds the lead IMO, which is a little bit better than Roon. But since Roon offers a better interface plus now Roon ARC so I can stream to our cars so I got rid of Sirius/xm, I use Roon.