Streamer Upgrade

I’m now on a Mercury streamer by Pi2design. I mean, I’ve already mentioned it way to much here, but it just keeps blowing my mind.

It’s based on a raspberry pi 4, but with some extremely high end clocks, a well built-out/extended board, and some really heavy duty galvanic isolation circuitry. Already leaps and bounds ahead of the Bluesound Node, seeming to perform even better than the new ifi stream (more reviews are about to drop soon I think). It also acts as its own ddc, being able to spit out coax, bnc, aes, I2s and optical simultaneously. Roon is more than compatible, and very flexible in that you can change out the OS with just the switching of an SD card.

Caveats: even though it comes preloaded with Volumio software, can be a bit glitchy during setup. Occasionally on playback as well. So not as plug and play as other more expensive streamers.

But INSANELY great for the $600.

I personally don’t find a dedicated streamer necessary from my comparisons 

a little green computer with SS  drive, and linear power supply 

sounds very clean ,a much bigger difference is your main power into the house 

ihad installed awg10 copperwire a 4 wire 30 amp breaker pure silver breaker contacts siemensGermany , one ground wire common ground ,the other insulated

isolated ground to a dedicated grounding strip in the main circuit breaker box to a externalsilverplated copper rod  the background is exceptionally quiet ,much better 

then stock and all outlets gold over Copper outlets ,No brass on Any contacts in any parts of my audio system copper is 5x less resistance, as well as conductivity

everything adds up .

I love streaming and I felt for the McIntosh MB50 Streaming / DAC and it is runing on Play-Fi. I live with it till today and love the big, clear, warm sound signture of this McIntosh streamer. I am surprise how come the world is complaining about Play-Fi apps being problem but I find no problem with it. No drop-out at all. May b 1 out of 1000 when my wifi gives me the problem. I used some exp streamers (I dont want to mention the brands) with their own apps but got problems with the apps. I sold them and keep this McIntosh. I even find Roon cumbersome needing to have the Core running and did dropped out on me. 

I just bought Lumin u2 Mini (1 week ago) for MQA playback and to use the USB out to my Esoteric k-03XD dac. Sound is also very good but I find the play-fi app is simple and better and meet my purpose of streaming without any complication. Lumin app is way advance with many options but I find it is more complexes. 
Both Play-Fi and Lumin apps seems very stable to me without any drop. 
But I prefer Play-fi app anytime which the world is complaining about. lol
Cheers and enjpy your streaming music.


 

@curiousjim, in all honesty its hard to say. I had the Node 2i before and bought this Node second hand already upgraded. I never got to A/B them but I will say that I am quite happy with it. I got it for a good deal considering how much just the power supply upgrade is. I read a lot about it and many claim that if you are using the on-board DAC with the Node then the upgrade is significant. I also read that it helps even if you are using it as a stand alone streamer. If it was me though and you are using the on-board DAC of the Node, then I would put the money into a new DAC vs the Teddy Pardo upgrade. I think that you would see a bigger improvement there. Something like a Denafrips Ares II would be nice. Again, I think it sounds pretty good and I think I have a decently revealing system. (Mcintosh MA6900, Schiit Gumby, JBL L100 Classic 75’s)

Thanks @juanmanuelfangioii and @m669326!!