Used Auralic Aries (circa 2015) sounds great and comes with a massive external linear power supply, ususally available for $7-800. Very versatile either with it's own Lightning software or Roon.
What are you using as a streamer? Constructive feedback please.
Wondering what improvements I can made to my streaming end and what you all are using.
Not looking to rip CDs and I mostly listen to vinyl.
System right now is:
Node 2 (latest version used streaming only with Roon)
Bel Canto e.One ref DAC 2.7
Bel Canto e.One ref CD3t Transport.
Bel Canto e.One ref 501S (best Class D to date to ever grace my system)
Mini GaN 5 ( had to try it and swap it in and out)
AM Qualiton X200 Tube Integrated (love it and gets most use)
QLN Prestige 5 Speakers.
All cables and wires are Signal Cable.
Appreciate the constructive feedback.
Have a great day.
157 responses Add your response
Do streamers actually make an audible difference? So far I have been pretty happy with the Raspberry Pi 4 streamer I built for about $60 earlier this year. I stream Qobuz via Volumio for RPi4 using USB connection to my Chord Hugo DAC. Other than maybe improving the player interface I doubt that I will get more out of my system from spending 10 times what I paid for my streamer. |
I am currently using a BlueSound Node 2i. I am working with a knowledgeable sales person at The Cable Company and he convinced me to purchase a power cable and digital cable and us the DAC inside my ARCAM AVR550 because he said the DAC inside my ARCAM is of much higher quality. I am still nervous about giving up MQA. He told me MQA is primarily a marketing tool and the sound difference will be noticeable by adding the cables I ordered. I am still waiting for delivery.
I have not had the ability to hear other streamers costing so much more. I wonder if you can really hear a difference in some costing $2,000 to $3,000. If so, what will I hear that will be significantly better than what I have? |
@docaudio_mc my streamer has a dac and preamp, one stop shop. Cambridge Audio CXN V2. The $700 I paid was well worth the cost... |
Hello everyone, I have a BluOS Node 2i , with a Wireworld C-7 power cord…used strictly as a streamer into a Esoteric K03 via the coax rca input….. I took a chance and purchased a Snake River Boomslang digital cable….when it was on sale…. And I could not believe what a difference a cable made !! Absolutely stunned !! No plans to change at this moment…..! Eventually things will plateau….and trickle down technology Hopefully will be more affordable !? All the best to everyone ! |
Hi, all. I'm a fan of Apple Music. I like the lossless and high res, the vast collection of music, and the price. I also use Audirvana from the Mac for my own digital collection. Haven't tried Tidal or Qobuz or Roon. So I use a Macbook Pro (or iPad Mini) outputting via USB to a Topping D10S to convert to SPDIF coaxial to an older Peachtree DacIt that (I think) still sounds great. For me, the next step is upgrading the DAC. I think the digits going into the DAC are just fine coming out of the Mac or Ipad. Maybe down the road when my system is more revealing, I'll have to improve it, but I find the DAC to be the most important part in the digital bits chain. IMHO. |
In a perfect world yes but in reality that’s not true. The voltages that are represented by ones and zeros have residual values that distorts the signal. Personally I use a fanless I5 PC and the USB out. My DAC manufacture provides a specific USB driver and I use Fidelizer to further reduce OS and component signal interference. Windows Remote PC allows you to control your software . App from almost any device. Sounds better than the Raspberry PI with the ALLO digiOne. I’m still not a robot but may be more android than ever. |
Oh poppycock. The stream of bits coming out of my Raspberry Pi’s USB is identical to any streamer mentioned in this thread. Everything down stream from the streamer makes the difference in SQ. If what you say is true, you could never restore a computer backup. |
Roon NUC w/2 SSDs Custom LPS Bridge to isolate and distribute the computing load (bridge = Rpi Ethrernet in USB out) Custom LPS for that Isolation on USB --> DAC; either DAC powers USB or i have yet another very small LPS to power just the clean USB side. Most people are surprised digital can sound so -- well like nothing at all.
So what's important? 1. The network - wire it, no wifi 2. isolation of noisy computers from DACs. Isolated interfaces, independent power. This means not just +5 rails but grounds. 3. Timing at the DAC chip - generally not an issue unless you use SPDIF, which is one big reason i don't, except for TV etc. The rest is pretty much irrelevant
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One of the big improvements of the Raspberry PI 4 was to separate the USB bus from the ethernet bus. Why?... Because of the noise of the shared bus. PI 3 was still able to backup your hard drive as a computer bit (a switch) isn’t as prone to noise as an bit converter. i haven’t tried a PI 4 but requiring a fan because the extra heat it produces made me go a different way. The PI2AES was a I2s interface that blew away some of the top streamers unfortunately they aren’t being made and probably will incorporate the technology into a much more expensive products. Here is a post on how to improve the USB signal for sound reproduction and it works for me. Not a robot but I do dream of electric sheep |
Very interesting thread. I learned a couple of new things. Recently I scored a deal on Lumin U1 Mini, and apart from the dumb app (iPhone anyway) and the ethernet-only option, I found it was no real meaningful upgrade from Lindemann Limetree Bridge II. To me, the latter was a huge upgrade from Node 2i, which I won't touch every again. I like German simplicity and manufacturing: so Limetree feeding into the loved-for-a-reason RME ADI2 DAC. This combo is very, very good for the price.
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Roon and Tidal is the core of my streaming. The signature system uses Roonbridge running on a Thinkserver 2016 with Audiophile Optimizer and separated USB card powered by a separate power supply and CA DAC magic Plus. Just recently bought Bluesound Node 3rd generation, Pangea Power cable, Audioquest evergreen interconnects, Tripplite line conditioner, Project Carbon EVO turntable, NHT Zero, SVS SB-1000 SW, Carver Amp for a 2nd system and could not be any happier as to the performance of the BSN. BSN is hardwired with CAT6 to wall plugs and connected to two switches in the media room which serves the entire house. |
A vote for LMS (Logitech Music Server) here. It integrates very well with Qobuz. I've got a collection of FLAC's on my Raspberry PI server also. I have cheap Pi's in two other rooms that feed other systems with good dacs. Interestingly, when listening on my PC, I can't tell the difference between direct Qobuz and playing through the streamer using an excellent dac/headphone amp with either my Beyer DT880 or Monolith Planars. The only downside that I can see is that it's not plug and play...... |
Both USB and ethernet are connected to the same internal AMBA bus in the internal pi 4 processor. They didn't separate out things the processor in the pi 3 and 3b did not have integrated ethernet. The new processor has integrated ethernet and only requires an external phy. The old one didn't have ethernet so they use the chip that provided USB and ethernet together. Due to the reduced performance of the original USB I/F from the processor they could only do 300 mbps on the ethernet (3b+), 100mbps(3b). It had absolutely nothing to do with noise but about data transfer bottlenecks. In terms of noise they both use the same power supply which is where most of the noise will come from. |
I think you’ll like the e.One Stream, I certainly like mine. The Seek app isn’t bad, but I much prefer the ui of Roon, and the Stream is a Roon endpoint and setup is a breeze. I’m pairing mine with a W4S DAC and couldn’t be happier with the sound. Guessing you’ll have similar results with your DAC 2.7. Good luck and let us know how it works out for you. |
Sure all USB sounds alike. If you can’t hear it then it must be true. While Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ added Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, throughput on Raspberry Pi 4 is free from the single shared USB 2.0 channel to the SoC The USB host controller is connected directly to the SoC via a PCIe bus. The Ethernet Controller is built directly in to the SoC. What are the three laws again and do forums count? |
I had to go back and remind myself what i read back when i last looked at Pis for audio. I've had other pressing issues int he intervening 9 months. From my perusal of the (sparse) documentation and the schematic it seems that they have separated the USB onto it sown controller and stopped loading the processor with some of the Ethernet duties- both of which will reduce some of the noise, to the degree that noise is proportional to workload.
As to the supply - if you mean the EXTERNAL supply, that’s where you need to spend some time or money. I built a well regulated and filtered , 3.5A linear supply. It ought to quiet things, and listening tests (vs the $7 standard issue cana-whatever unit) strongly supports this presumption. I can’t speak to mot commercial supplies, having never used them. Well, one exception - i had an ALLO DAC/Pi based bridge/Shanti to evaluate and study for a while and it was an impressive power supply for the price, I thought. It costs something under $200 and if i recall also supports both dirty and clean 5V outputs.
I also isolate the USB of the DAC following (if using the one i half-built) and the commercial ones has built in isolation, quite good from what i could see visually (an SMT transformer) |
In the late 90s or early 2k's I was one of the first to own a Squeeze Box... One of the product reviews stated "Squeeze box got me laid last night!" Seeing the review was a few weeks old, I ordered it because anyone cool enough to leave that is my dude... So, it was as amazing and more than the hype... Used it for many years... A year ago tried to find it, wound up building this (With the add on DAC feeding my SCHIIT Modi multibit) and it is absolutely fantastic... http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/03/howto-building-and-installing-raspberry.html?m=1 I have about 5K wav's on a SSD that's is accessible instantly, can stream tidal, XM etc and surprisingly really do enjoy the local radio stations from time to time...
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@scthom - sorry, been out of touch for a couple of days. To your question on the M3 vs the AM Tubadour III SE - both are great DACs. Overall neutral presentation and musical overall, which is to say nothing in their presentation is prominent. A coherent presentation of the music by both DACs. Good meat on the bones - not a thin presentation or overly clinical like some DACs. Highly resolving, good soundstage. The Bricasti has a touch faster/harder attack than the AM. Both could be considered endgame DACs by many. I've principally used the M3 via the internal network card, and I don't really recall its sound via other inputs. I've principally used the AM via the USB input (recommended by Vlad along with the I2S). I use my Auralic G2 as the source for the AM. As a DAC on its own, the AM is the better deal, and if you principally use single-ended, I would go with the AM. The Bricasti has balanced outputs and also a decent analog volume control. Of course, when you consider I am using a streamer more expensive than the AM, the prices of the sets of streamer and DAC are more equivalent and slightly favors the Bricasti. Both are great DACs and I feel no need to upgrade. |
If you are going to use Roon and is somewhat used to computers you can buy an Intel NUC and install Roon Rock. I have not tried it buy a lot of people says it sounds great. If you are not gonna use Roon then a Windows computer with some remote access app might work great. This should be cheaper that a special streamer. Here Darko talks about Roon Rock (from 5:42).
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I have 2 Raspberry Pi3 based music streamers in my home. One is a bare-bones build with just the RP3 board, in an acrylic case with an cheap switching power supply. This one is USB output only. The other one is the same, but has a HiFiBerry Dac+ Pro DAC hat installed, plus an upgraded iFi power supply. The DAC+ Pro attaches directly to the top of the RP3 board via a I2S bus, so no cable needed. Both run Volumio OS. I've been very happy with both streamers since switching from Moode OS to Volumio. Standard Volumio OS is free to download. They have 2 tiers of premium subscriptions that add additional functionality. Both tiers are very inexpensive - $50-$100/year. I do not currently have either premium tier. I just use the free version. I have my two streamers connected to my primary audio system and my office system. I control both of them via an Volumio using an internet browser on either my laptop or my phone. Easy Peasy... Anyone wanting to dip their toe into streaming can build a RP streamer for under $100 and give it a try. |
Computer Audio Design CAT feeding an Aesthetix Romulus Eclipse Gigafoil with Keces LPS on the Ethernet just prior to the CAT CAD GC1 ground control on the CAT Upgraded from a Logitech transporter feeding an Arye Codex i doubt the bits changed but the sound sure did. I used to think it was only the bits that mattered but listening changed my mind |
I tried a number of streamers before committing to a Lumin T2. The Bel Estream was a disappointment, as was the a BlueSound. I did keep a Bluesound Powernode to power the inwalls in my dining room and kitchen, but for critical listening it was not great. Auralic was detailed but dry, the Linn the same. I did not try Aurender as it failed to support Roon. Used a Lumin D2 for a year and it was decent but the T2 was stellar. |
I’m a Innuos Zenith MK3 4TB with Phoenix USB Reclocker (8-10k). I really do like it, but I way over bought considering the rest of my system. If you’re a vinyl guy you can get buy and enjoy yourself with a lot less. But price is always a big part of the equation. I’d recommend the Zen MK3 with a SoTM Tx-usbultra special edition. New its 4k, but can easily find good pricing and get it for under 3k for both I’m sure. Basically 90% the the quality and 25% the price. I tried the SoTM and liked it, but Innuos Phoenix did pull slightly ahead and just wanted all Innuos stuff. Read over your Integrated and looks good excellent! Very nice set-up. |
Wondering how things are going with your new Streamer? Also what digital cable you are using to the DAC (Signal Cable? Coax of AES?) Hope you are enjoying it! |
@rockrider I am loving it. Using the AES from Signal Cable. The unit is sensitive to cabling and with the Digital Coax did not have the captaincy for 194’ would only play 96. |
@jerryg123 Great! Thank you, and Happy New Year! |
There’s a lot to discuss here, electrical noise from jitter and reflections in connectors and cables. |
Here’s what I am using and couldn’t be happier: 1) Mac Mini M1. Sole purpose, running Roon/Tidal/USB HD & HQ Player. I am upsampling everything local and on Tidal to DSD512/ASDM7/poly-sinc-xtrr-mp-2s via HQPlayer 2) Sonore UtraDigital feeds Kitsune Singxer SU-2 via I2s to modified LKS DAC MH-DA004
Costs: Mac Mini M1 8GB: $699 Sonore Ultra-Digital: $395 Kitsune SU-2 : $789 HQPlayer License : $246 Total: $2146 |