Streamer Upgrade

@willg1985 Yes I am. Using the N30SA, which is their reference streamer. I came a long way in the last 10 years or so. Upgrading to it made a bigger difference in sound quality than spending even more on a DAC upgrade. After buying the N30SA I slimmer my vinyl collection a bit and sold about 200 records in two months. Now I listen primarily to local files and streaming. I still have 600 vinyl records or so and listen to them less than 10% or the time.

What I would say is that the cost for entry to great streaming is very expensive. If your budget is less than that, definitely seek guidance and do research on the best solution for yourself. If you want to share what you’re considering and/or budget you want to invest, you might get some good guidance from the community. 

Wow very honest and refreshing post.  Thank you.

Thanks again @blisshifi. Maybe one day I could get to the N30SA level. I was planning on spending about $3k on a streamer. The Lumin U2 Mini and the Auralic Aries G1.1 were the 2 that seemed the most do-able right now. 

If you have CDs you still listen to you might also consider an Innuos Zen Mk3 as in addition to being an excellent streamer it’s also a server with its own disc drive so you can just load them directly into it and have access to all your music from your chair.  And their Sense software is reputed to produce excellent sound relative to many other apps out there, and by all accounts Innuos has very good customer support as well, which is nice with products like streamers where issues can pop up now and again.  Just another potential option FWIW, and best of luck. 

Thanks @soix, I like the thought of that a lot but it doesn't seem that it has Spotify compatibility. I personally use Qobuz but no Spotify would be a deal breaker for the wife. Great option otherwise though.