Suggestions for a streamer only (I have a great DAC)


I have a dCS Paganini DAC and Paganini Clock. I’m looking for a streamer only to pair with the Paganini to stream via Tidal.  That’s it, I don’t need a streamer/DAC/etc.  I don’t want to extra for pay for redundancy.  Any good suggestions on a streamer only  that you have paired to a high end DAC with good results would be appreciated. 

 

PLEASE no “try some at home on your system” responses …. that’s the reason I came here, for some recommendations. Price range $1500-$5000.

 

Thanks!

naperaudio

Showing 1 response by duckworp

I have tried a number of network bridges. I would recommend one of the following;

Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra. This is a tiny box with a wonderful network bridge inside. It retails at around $1000. It is designed by John Westlake, a great designer, and based on a Radpberry Pi and runs Volumio software to access Tidal very intuitively.

SOtM sms-200 ultra NEO. This is a great upgradeable small box solution. It is upgraded by adding the sps-500 power supply, the sCLK-ocx10 clock, and the tx-USB ultra USB ’cleaner’. So you could have 4 of the SOtM boxes with the full set up.

The Auralic Aries G1 or G2 is a traditionally sized Hi-Fi component with its own software to integrate with Tidal. I found the SQ was no better than the two above though

I have tried other options from a home built Pi to ones from Sonore and BluSound but none of these were as good as the 3 manufacturers above.

 

Sound quality wise between these they are all very close. I have the 4 box SOtM in one of my systems and the Pro-Ject in another. By adding the other boxes to the SOtM I got minor improvements on one of my systems, but no noticeable difference on two others, I guess it depends on the DAC, but the SOtM is not as intuitive to set up. Both models of the Auralic sounded no better than the Pro-Ject or the base one-box SOtM and at around 3 to 5 times the price.

Personally I’d go with the Pro-Ject. It sounded as good as the Auralic and is a tenth of the size and a quarter of the price. If you like the upgrade path I’d head for the SOrM and you can see if your DAC responds to the changes you make.

For ref I have tested these network bridges on my two high end DACs (dcs equivalent) and one mid range.