Streamer vs. CD Transport

I might add that I mainly listen to classical, and I find the IDAGIO streaming service, even without hi-res capacity, superior sounding to Tidal or Qobuz.

I find S/PDIF coax superior to optical. Have you tried using the coax on the transport? I run coax from both my transport and streamer to my DAC.

Another possibility is your transport is not up to the task. There may not be enough jitter correction. You could try  aftermarket footers on the transport, use a damping weight on top, try a better power cable, use power conditioning. 

Lowrider,

Do you have more than one coax receptor on your DAC?

Yes, 2 inputs, but only one source can be used at a time.

I don’t, so I can’t  hook up both with coax at the same time.

I meant to only run the transport via coax for a day or two and see if you notice an improvement.
You can then swap it with the optical cable. Kind of an a/b situation.

Good idea!

Another option is to use a cable similar to the Black Cat Silvestar, it has BNC termination with adapter for RCA connection, This way you can plug one of the sources to the Gungnir BNC input. IMHO the BNC is the best Gungnir input.
Regarding the streammer vs CD, I consider the streammer (Allo Digione Signature/Tidal) much more convenient and the sound quality in some cases surpasses the CD transport (Oppo 95). QJA

Mtavares,

Thanks for the suggestion.  That would work.

Interestingly, the Arcam’s digital receptical is a female BNC on which I am using an RCA adaptor. I can use the Silverstar on that and switch the coax to the Cyrus.  Should improve both.

I prefer, by a slight margin, my Oppo 105 as a transport over my various streamers into the same DAC.  I also listen to Classical.  I didn’t care for the sound of IDAGIO vs. Qobuz, but prefer silver discs over all of them.  Ymmv.  There are a lot of variables at play, not the least being differences between the ears and brains of different individuals 

The answer to your questions is it depends.  I used to use a blue sound node 2i streamer that I thought sounded great.  I made a significant upgrade and picked up an Aurender Streamer.  At 8x the price the the node 2i the difference in SQ is dramatic.  My Aurender is not even one of the higher end models as their flagship streamer is 22k so I can't imagine how that would sound.  Generally speaking unless you get into a high end streamer a redbook cd on a transport going into your dac will sound better....provided that it is a good transport.  For ultimate quality a SD card reader transport is the way to go and they are cheap compared to transports and streamers.  Here a review of one which basically gives you rundown of its operation.   https://6moons.com/audioreviews2/soundaware2/1.html

Mtavares,

I ordered the Silverstar cable on approval per your recommendation.  I’ll let you know how it sounds.

jaudio,

I wonder what sound difference you hear with the Aurender vs the Bluesound Node 2I.  When I was looking at the Bluesound Node 2i, I was also looking at the Bel Canto eOne streamer at double the price and wondered if I would hear significantly better sound quality.

rvpiano,

Nice to hear that you will try the Black Cat Silvestar. This way you will use the best connections between your equipments.  QJA

Mtavares,

It arrived in one day. i already connected it. The Cable Company lends you a burnt in loaner cable to try out to see if you like it.
At first, it sounded constricted.  But after several hours playing its starting to fill out very nicely.  It sounds like a keeper.

Thanks very much for the recommendation!

I own a Bluesound Node2i and found improvement when replacing the stock PC with a good aftermarket.
I started thinking that what makes the Node a budget device is the lack of a high quality power supply. The PS in a streamer like the Aurender would be vastly superior to the Node. Better internals in the Aurender goes without saying.

I got the Arcam streamer because of a review favorably comparing it to the Bluesound.

Just rip your CDs, an SSD is superior to any transport.

 Just did a listen test on the same 44.1 CD files, both from an HDD and from an SSD. Both to the same DAC and to my system. The SSD is an NVME one and there is no SATA bus at all.

 No comparison at all. The SSD trounces the HDD is so many areas its not a fair contest. Now imagine how much worse your transport sounds. ;)

HDD, SSD, NVME. SATA 

What does it all mean?

LOL. Now I have a real problem. I have created a RAM Disk in my RAM and put the same 44.1 files I have on my SSD and HDD on it. Its noticeably better than my SSD. Not as much as from HDD to SSD, but better.

 Oh well I'll have to write some code to take care of this problem. ;)

HDD and SSD are hard drives the SSD is solid state HDD is the older type . NVME and SATA are the way they interface non volitale memory and serial data. You can look them up if you need more info.  SSD connected  by NVME is faster

Djones51,

Thanks.

Mtavares,

just to update:

After trying the Black Cat in my system for a few days, I noticed a lack of highs and transparency.  When I went back to my original cable it sounded better.
Thanks for your suggestion though.  It certainly was worth the try.

The Black Cat may not be fully run-in. Some cable require about 200 hours.
You should run your source through the cable day and night. Then have a listen.

Lack of highs and transparency would mean it's not a high quality cable, or it's new and needs more hours of run-in.

According to the Cable Company, the loaner Black Cat they sent me was already thoroughly broken in.
I also used it continually for two days before pulling the plug.
There was really a huge difference in enjoyment between my cable and the Black Cat.

Oh yeah, I forgot that it came from The Cable Company. You're right, that's how the Black Cat is going to sound. Disappointing.

One thing that I’ve learned from this, is the immense difference cables make on the quality of the sound.  It’s a night and day difference between the two cables.
I was beginning to think something was wrong with my system until I went back to the original wire (which btw is a very nigh quality cable.)

 A DAC that does asynchronous USB well, like my Music Fidelity V 90, sounds much better than Toslink with a decent cable.

One thing that I’ve learned from this, is the immense difference cables make on the quality of the sound.  It’s a night and day difference between the two cables.
I was beginning to think something was wrong with my system until I went back to the original wire (which btw is a very nigh quality cable.)

That's a pretty valuable lesson though! 

Back to your streaming vs CD - most people I know generally still pick CDs over streaming, but honestly it's hard to test. Is your CD transport on the same quality level as your streamer? Are the using the same cables into the same DACs. Is the streaming file exactly the same mastering as the CD. It's a lot of variables. I keep a CD player in my system for this exact reason. Don't sweat it too much. If you have the CD, just play that. If not, just stream it. 

Now if you're starting from scratch and don't have CDs... well then it might be harder to justify. 

I have about 5000 CDs.  So that’s not a problem.
CDs do sound better  than streaming on my system.
But streaming is so damned convenient. 

I know i said the opposite in my opening, but now CDs sound better.

That pretty much what I thought. Thanks. Ironic since CDs replaced LPs for convenience. 

Yes, i thought of the same thing.

rvpiano,

Thanks by the feedback related to the Black Cat Cable. This help us to better adjust our systems in the future.
One thing that it is not clear to me is that the in the beginning of your post you are comparing the coax with optical. The cable that you are considering that it is better is the optical or the coaxial?  
Although it is not the proper subforum, please, could you share the cables involved?

So,  Streamer is superior than PC+Dac?

It depends.  If you have great DAC that can do an effective job reclocking the usb from the PC you can get excellent results 

I have CEC CD5 which is has USB dac, want to try to Streaming but with low cost solutions, confused on getting decent PC and connecting to CD5 or get streamer.
Hope I am not hijacking thread....

Mtavares,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.  It’s a little difficult to search the wires in back of the components,  I’ll let you know soon. 

Mtavares,

The coax cable is from Morrow.
The optical is glass micro fiber.

Twoleftears,

That unit does sound very promising for $3000, but  i think the quality might not compare to separates.

Btw,  As I said in my corrected post, the transport with the optical sounds better than the streamer with the coax.  I did do a side by side comparison comparison of the transport with both optical and coax cables connected and found virtually no difference in SQ.