Streamer vs. CD Transport

Interestingly, the Arcam’s digital receptical is a female BNC on which I am using an RCA adaptor. I can use the Silverstar on that and switch the coax to the Cyrus.  Should improve both.

I prefer, by a slight margin, my Oppo 105 as a transport over my various streamers into the same DAC.  I also listen to Classical.  I didn’t care for the sound of IDAGIO vs. Qobuz, but prefer silver discs over all of them.  Ymmv.  There are a lot of variables at play, not the least being differences between the ears and brains of different individuals 

The answer to your questions is it depends.  I used to use a blue sound node 2i streamer that I thought sounded great.  I made a significant upgrade and picked up an Aurender Streamer.  At 8x the price the the node 2i the difference in SQ is dramatic.  My Aurender is not even one of the higher end models as their flagship streamer is 22k so I can't imagine how that would sound.  Generally speaking unless you get into a high end streamer a redbook cd on a transport going into your dac will sound better....provided that it is a good transport.  For ultimate quality a SD card reader transport is the way to go and they are cheap compared to transports and streamers.  Here a review of one which basically gives you rundown of its operation.   https://6moons.com/audioreviews2/soundaware2/1.html

Mtavares,

I ordered the Silverstar cable on approval per your recommendation.  I’ll let you know how it sounds.

jaudio,

I wonder what sound difference you hear with the Aurender vs the Bluesound Node 2I.  When I was looking at the Bluesound Node 2i, I was also looking at the Bel Canto eOne streamer at double the price and wondered if I would hear significantly better sound quality.