Do I have to use a streamer/renderer to play music from an NAS?

Steve,

It’s ALL ABOUT JITTER, period

I was under the impression that jitter was handled by “modern” DACs or by using an external master clock.  Having said that, I have zero experience with external clocks.

I have a Mytek Liberty DAC.  It’s specs have, “Clock generator: Low noise with 10ps of jitter.”  Realizing 10 is more than a few, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being really bad, where would you rate “10ps of jitter?”

@OP.   Please forgive me for diverging from your original question.  Many of these responses have been educational for me.  I’m posing questions to better understand and learn.

Johnnie

10psec is a bogus spec IME.  It's generally the specification for the oscillator before it's installed into a circuit.  In the circuit, the jitter from that 10psec oscillator usually translates to 500 psec, sometimes even more.  I've measured these things on my bench many times.  It takes an experienced, educated designer with clever tricks to get 10psec of jitter from any device, including a USB converter, Ethernet converter or a reclocker.  Nobody else comes close to 10psec that I get from all of my products.  7psec from my Synchro-Mesh.  I continually have customers and other vendors bringing over things to test on my bench.  All disappointing.

No matter what your digital source is, the jitter can be lowered by using a Synchro-Mesh reclocker and a good BNC cable.  If you DAC does not reclock, this will still improve things, just not as much .

As for USB, I recommend this regenerator with LPS:
https://sotm-usa.com/collections/sotm-ultra/products/copy-of-tx-usbultra-regenerator-1 

Even with USB, the best scenario is usually an outboard USB converter with LPS feeding a BNC coax to your DAC.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Steve,

Thanks for the info.

Johnnie

Having been down this path a few years ago, I realize how confusing it can be.  I have a QNAP NAS, installed Asset UPnP as well as MinimServer on it; both work well.  I use my Oppo 205 as the digital hub since it decodes almost anything you throw at it.  I have the Oppo connected to my Parasound P7 preamp.

There are various DNLA apps you can use to direct the music to your Oppo or whatever preamp you have.  Oppo has an app.  I also use the Creation 5+ app.  If you have Linn front end digital gear, then by all means use the Linn apps.  Sadly they don't work with my gear. 

I also briefly used a SimAudio Mind player, worked well, well built, but it's stereo only.