Streamer suggestions with both wireless and wired connections

@michaelalan

If you do your research and buy best of class then Streamer ~= DAC ~= Preamp ~= amp. Over time for me again and again my end system after an upgrade ends there. Typically my speakers will be the more expensive than my components. I’ll put 35% investment for component / speakers into speakers. I don’t include interconnects… I blow my whole budget… then as I learn about the sound of my new system and as my finances recover I start purchasing cables. My objective is to reach the maximum sound quality for my system so I can happily stay there for 7 to 10 years.

So for my headphone system my streamer $3.5K, DAC $4K, amp $5K. Main system: Streamer $22K, DAC $17K, Preamp $17K, amp $22K. I tried a $13K streamer… definitely lost a lot… I tried a $22K DAC and it was a tiny bit better, but a tiny less musical. So, it is only a rough guide.

But it also makes sense to me because another of my rules of thumb are that it takes 2x careful investment to make a “wow” that is a lot better. I find the high end audio industry is pretty competitive and if your component doesn’t outperform lessor ones, then your not in the running.

I am using a Blue sound Nide 2i streamer (not as a dac though) for already several years, sometimes I use my computer and actually I note no essential difference in sound quality.

This begs the question, what music service are you using and what’s in the rest of your system because this flies far in the face of the experience of the vast majority of members here.  Put another way and more directly, something seems really amiss here.  The more info you provide here the better and more meaningful help and recommendations you’ll receive, so please share more if you’re willing. 

buy best of class then Streamer ~= DAC ~= Preamp ~= amp. Over time for me again and again my end system after an upgrade ends there.

Greatly appreciated @ghdprentice, I expected DAC ~= Preamp, but didn't expect Streamer to be equal.

Didn't mean to sidetrack the OP, hopefully we get more details, I'm interested in following along

I owned the Node and the Vault and thought that they both sounded better wired.  I had used computers for streaming prior to that and thought that the Bluesound sounded roughly equivalent, but I enjoyed having the computer out of the system and Bluesound made Internet Radio so much easier.

  Better streamers are out there and I don’t think $5K is required.  My Cambridge Audio CXN 60 sounds better than Bluesound at roughly twice the Node price.

  I would definitely go wired.  For a few hundred dollars you should be able to hire an IT installer for 1-2 hours to wire your dwelling.  Once done you should never need to repeat.  Think of it as part of the cost of the streamer.  You could try this with the Node first

Thanks all for your input. I think I need more of that.

@carlsbad2 , did you mean 92% instead of 2? Just an elementary calculus. I I compared of course CD reproduction with streaming with Tidal. I hear a bit cleaner and  little bit of more space on CD,  but I would not call the differences crucial. Given that the difference between wired and wireless connections cannot be more than that, 2 % seem too exaggerated. 

As to my main system, I have Thiel CS6 speakers, and interchange different amplifiers, a few class d, and a SET tube amplifier. CDs are reproduced by Jays  Audio transport and a t&a DAC. I suggest both give high quality CD reproduction. Despite this, the differences between wireless streaming with the  Node 2i and CDs are non-critical.  So my logic just says that there cannot be a big difference between different streamers. Besides, it may depend on the type of a streamer, if you have one with a buffer then the information is first loaded in the buffer and then is reproduced from the buffer, as if you were reading from a hard drive. So whether you are streaming wireless or with a cable, roughly, the outcome should be similar, with a little more delay with wireless connection. @troidelover1499 , your arguments sound logical and reasonable.

@ghdprentice , does Aurender produce wireless streamers, how you came to a 22k streamer, would not you get a better overall result to invest part of this to upgrade the rest of your components? (There is a boom on Aurender streamers on this site, to me, it  looks more like an intentional advertisement than statement of objective reality.)