Streamers in the scheme of things.


I needed a streamer with AES3 out to connect to my Dutch and Dutch 8c’s so I began home trials. First I gave the Simaudio Moon Mind2 a go then a Bel Canto e Stream since I didn’t need a DAC . I am running Roon on a NUC and used these as roon ready devices. They both sounded very much alike or I guess I should say they didn’t do anything to mess up the stream. Before I used a raspberry pi4 as a bridge since I didn’t notice improved sound wondered how I could keep using it when I found a USB to AES3 converter the Matrix X SPDIF 2. At $400 I figured I had nothing to lose and $1600 to gain over the streamers. Today it was delivered connected my little raspberry pi4 to it and yes it sounds just as good. Streamers don’t have a hard job just get info to the DAC. Back go the Moon and Bel Canto.
djones51
Always good to save money. Did you get the Moon and Bel Canto on a 30 day return basis?

There's also a hat board called Pi2AES that may have been worth comparing.

I wonder also if the max 192khz AES input of these speakers is a factor on levelling the performance of all the streamers here.
Yes, I already shipped them back. I looked at the Pi2AES it was a 4 week time frame on orders. It wasn’t that much cheaper figuring in power supply and case. Everything I stream through roon on Quboz is 192/24 or lower. My flac files are all redbook.