Streamer/DAC Recommendations w Wavelett II

Hey @rbrannen - I am an authorized Aurender dealer and Legacy Audio installer (I deal Legacy products but am required to install anything I sell). I also owned the Legacy Aeris with the Wavelet long before I became a dealer. From what I recall, Wavelet does everything in the digital domain. If you plan to continue to leverage it for its DSP capabilities, there is no point in having another DAC in the chain, especially if it is in the same chassis as your streamer. Otherwise, you would have the streamer send its digital signal to the internal DAC, which would then output analog into the Wavelet II, which would then digitize it again to apply the DSP, only to convert it back to analog. Any character a different DAC will bring will somewhat get removed through the correction process of the Wavelet II. That was my experience in the years I owned the Wavelet.

The Wavelet II is also a pretty good DAC, up against others in the $5K range for dedicated DACs. For example, I don’t think you’d get any improvement from the DAC side of things by going with something like an Aurender A15, which retails for $8,400. The A15 is really the $6,300 N200 with the equivalent of a $3-5K DAC built in. If you were looking more towards the Aurender A20, then you’ll start to notice a bit more richness and effortlessness, less fatigue, etc compared to your Wavelet II. But in my opinion, I think you’d be better off investing in a high quality dedicated streamer like the Aurender N200 or Aurender N20 and let your Wavelet handle the DAC process.

I have a few more thoughts on this that I will PM you about directly.

I have the Wavelet II and Focus XD's in my system. I bought the Aurender N200 from Juan at BlissHiFi. I am extremely happy with it. 

Thank you Juan and fthompson251, sounds like I need to go the streamer only route and let my Wavelet handle the DAC. Juan I’ll reach out to you directly 

@rbrannen   I am using an outboard DAC as well. My system is in my profile.

@fthompson251 Have you tried with and without the outboard DAC now that you have the N200 in place? If so, can you share your experiences? With the Wavelet 1, I had the PS Audio DirectStream DAC MK1 and wasn’t really able to tell a difference what it brought in the chain. This was about five years ago, well before I became a dealer. I understand the Wavelet II is a big improvement, but still doesn’t make sense to have a DAC if the whole signal is getting re-processed. 

In Wavelet I, I believe the whole signal had to pass through the Wavelet’s DSP. If with the Wavelet II you can control it such that the bass frequencies pass through the DSP and the midrange and treble are pass through in analog, I can see where an outboard DAC adds more value.