Lots of advice here. I looked at streamers with built in DACs between $4-5k on Upscale website and they have several that have been mentioned and look attractive. Check out Hifi Rose RS150B, Cambridge Audio Edge EQ, AURALiC Altair G2.1. You said you were not impressed by an Aurender device previously but there is an A10 on the site for below $5k as well. kn |
@rtilden sorry for not responding - I was attending a festival this weekend and listening to Shamekia Copland and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram slay the blues live. I have the same Node N130 and Teddy Pardo combo that you have that I am using with a Furutech power cable and connected to a Chord Qutest DAC via a Chord Company coax cable. I use it much more often to serve files from an SSD than for streaming at this point, and it all sounds very good to me. But this is a four box front end I have pieced together over the last few years that takes up a whole 30” shelf on my equipment rack, and if I had to replace it all new it would cost almost five grand, not including the power or RCA cables. The OP wanted a one box solution under $5k, so I just pointed out that there are a number of streamers with built in DACs that have been mentioned positively in this thread available new or open box under $5k. I have not had a chance to evaluate any of these streamers compared with my set up. Looks like you have gotten lots of responses, and it sounds like @ghdprentice has listened to and evaluated many of them and is a big fan of Aurender. kn |
