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Streamers/DACs

Just picked out gear for our new hifi room and I’m starting my search for a good streamer or streamer/DAC combo.  We have Paradigm Persona 3F speakers, Persona Sub and Anthem STR amp.  I’ve narrowed streamers options down to 3 well-reviewed choices: Aurender, Lumin T3, and Cary Audio DMS-700.  Not sure if I’d go with the Aurender A15 which has the option to just do digital out if I feel the urge upgrade to a better DAC or start with the N200 and either use the Anthem’s DAC or buy a separate unit right off the bat.  Mostly interested in streaming Quboz, don’t care about Roon. The audio room has no realistic way to add an Ethernet port so I’ll need to work around this with a Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge (or comparable solution) if I choose Aurender or Lumin, whereas the DMS-700 has a built-in Wi-Fi option (but a seemingly rudimentary app by comparison to the others).  Any experience with these products is welcome.  Of particular interest would be experiences from other Persona owners and why they chose the streamers/DACs they did but all input is welcome.  Thanks much, this forum has helped immensely in the build thus far. 

brewerslaw

Showing 3 responses by lalitk

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,634 posts
 

“Mostly interested in streaming Quboz, don’t care about Roon.”

If you’re not interested in ROON, then there isn’t a better choice than Aurender. I am a long time Aurender user, the Conductor app is very robust, well laid out and makes it a breeze to browse, navigate and curate your music off Qobuz and local storage.

Couple of considerations while choosing Streamer / DAC’s. If you choose N200, then I would pick a DAC that offers the best possible USB & SPDIF implementation. So before you open your wallet for N200, do your research on a DAC.

As far the choice between WiFi or Ethernet, consider installing a mesh network. Both WiFi and Ethernet over power lines are not the best options.

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,634 posts
 

@blisshifi

My experience with EtherREGEN was a mix bag as well. It did more harm than good in my system and I end up moving away from it. When it first came out, there weren’t many options to tweak Ethernet so many reported positive feedback. IME, the impact of FILTERS and Switches greatly varies depending on what’s ahead of these devices. If you were using a high quality streamer, their impact may not be profound as opposed to someone using a Nucleus or iFI Zen.

I keep an open mind when it comes to Ethernet tweaks and believe their is no substitute for trying them in your system to truly understand their impact. Like you, I got done tweaking my Ethernet chain when I switched to Telegartner M12 Gold Switch w/JCAT LPS. Further, my switch and router are grounded with a pair of Entreq Macro Ground Boxes, the additions of grounding boxes was like cherry on top :-)

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,634 posts
 

@blisshifi

Don’t even get me started on overpriced gear, you and I both know why most of our gear overpriced or carry fat markups….LOL!

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