Streamed music sounds awful in my system and I don't know why ....


cd's spun in a transport are so much more satisfying.  Streamed content lacks body, bass, and correct timbre.

DAC is the Moon 780 driven by Moon's transport with Audience Front Row loom. Streamed source originates  from Windows Media Player platform into the same DAC 780 via CAT 6 cable hardwired into a Spectrum router.

If I wanted to upgrade the streaming experience, where would I start ?

Rest of system -Shindo Giscours pre-amp, VAC Phi 300 amp, Purist speaker cables feeding Wilson Sophia 3's.

Thanks for any guidance.

 

 

 

 

 

128x128dr-john

You’re getting a wide variety of advice here, some good and some bad.

with the price of the rest of your system, it would be a gigantic waste to keep an ordinary PC in the chain.

 I’ve found that Roon running on a separate dedicated server (like a Nucleus or NUC) feeding the player through Ethernet and the player feeding the DAC through USB is best.  AND turn off the Roon DSP and volume control in the Roon settings.  Makes a huge difference.

A quality Ethernet cable and USB cable help a lot, too.

@dr-john You can use a computer to stream with amazing quality. The easier way is to buy a dedicated audio server (really a computer) as mentioned by many others on this thread and be done with. If you are a bit more technically oriented, then you can easily get a CHEAP computer based streaming system setup as I described previously (I did not dive deep in the description).

Most people on Audiogon go the dedicated audio server way and that is a great choice for most. Though this is not the way I do it.

BTW - I was also curious about the elephant in the room. Why use the Windows media server app if you have MIND2?

As everyone else has said, dumpthe PC, get a quality streamer…..even an iFi or Node is better than what you have

Streaming is so joyful, convenient.  Initially when I started streaming music, the sound quality is not comparable to cds/SACD. Definitely. But after I upgraded to a better Router/MESH/Network Switch for my wifi, it improves tremendously. 
Wow, your Moon Evolution 780D Streaming DSD DAC is already a streamer it seems. Just get NAS connected to your wifi network where yu can store hi-res musics. I did that, it sound better than streamed from Tidal. More dynamic. And stream from IPAD. U can also subsc to Qubuz or Tidal and stream from IPAD.