You need two rooms, one for home theater and the other for stereo.
New Streamer, DAC or Let it Be
Hello. I am at a crossroads and interested in soliciting suggestions on a streamer and/or DAC upgrade using your collective experience. My focus is actually home theatre, with perhaps 20% of the time devoted to music. The space is my wife's office by day, my home theatre/ listening room by night, and furniture placement, windows, doors, etc. cannot be moved; it is what it is.
Equipment is a Marantz AV8805A processor, Parasound A51 amp and new Focal Kanta 2 speakers. My streamer is a Bluesound Node with upgraded internal power supply and external LPS, and Gustard U18 DDC feeding a Gustard X26 PRO DAC with SR purple fuse. The Node upgrades made a very positive difference, and addition of the Gustard U18 was a noticeable and very welcome upgrade as well. My frame of reference/ comparison are CDs from a modest collection played on an Oppo BD103, fed to the Marantz via HDMI (I tried Toslink and Coax but HDMI to the Marantz sounded best). I stream a variety of music using Qobuz and the Bluesound app on my phone. The app is OK but despite a trumpeted recent upgrade, Bluesound has not yet resolved something as simple as the ability to organize Favorites by Artist or Album; they appear in the reverse order added, which is nuts. The various digital upgrades have made streaming sound just about as good as the CD. Here’s the dilemma.
I live vicariously through your experience with the enormous breadth of quality digital equipment out there. I am not necessarily looking to throw money at something I do infrequently, yet am driven by the unknown: will an upgrade provide added pleasure and justify enhancements equal to the expense for the limited time I listen to music? Obviously, a therapist could help, but I trust many of you have been down this road and can offer insight. My questions are, would a streamer upgrade alone take me to the next level? Is a DAC upgrade instead the better path? Or, am I chasing unicorns, and is my humble setup good enough, to simply let it be? I learned never to say never, but the likelihood of an investment now and then further upgrades down the road is unlikely, as the wife has zero patience and appreciation for all this. As to existing equipment, the Marantz and Parasound aren’t going anywhere, and I am very happy with the Kantas. Any purchase will likely be via the used market, to mitigate costs. My budget is in the $3K range (preferably less, usually more), which is what I was looking at for a used/ open box Aurender N150. I am by no means limiting myself to just that brand or model streamer, and have not scratched the surface on a DAC, should that happen.
Thanks for your time and any experience/ suggestions you might share.
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- 55 posts total
@traubr if you are using room correction software in your AVR, it should cancel out anything audible you assume a DAC or streamer add. What you are hearing is the AVR’s software’s “take” on how things should sound based on the measurements it’s making. So the notion of changing the sound with things upstream of its DSP should be a bit of a non-sequitur. You mentioned certain changes being masked of audibility by cables. Of course the converse of this would be that there simply wasn’t significant difference to be heard. Some industries thrive on innovation that counts on consumers making frequent lateral moves. Take from that what ya will. 😉 Did you mention what speakers you’re using? I don’t re-read block paragraph form of kit listings since this website allows making a kit list on the profile page (wry grin). If you want to change your sound, change your speakers. If you like the sound of your speakers, you’re done “next-leveling”. That’ll also save you and your wife any learning curves on new streamer software, unless you prefer that part.
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@traubr I started my home audio journey like you have. I was all about my HT system and then turned my attentions to my 2 channel listening which is a shared space, finished basement (man cave). As others have mentioned, you have a great set of speakers, it’s the preamp that is the bottleneck. If you look at used, for that you’d pay for a new DAC or Streamer, you can land a SS or Tube preamp that has HT bypass. Likely your best solution, doesn’t have to break the bank. Music Fidelity, Naim, Parasound, Linear Tube Audio, Aric, Coda would be some brands to give a look. A quality Pre will provide a much larger jump in sound quality vs a change with a streamer or DAC. Your DAC is a great DAC, if you like the sound signature of it, you’ll have to spend quite a bit more to really make noticeable gains. The other direction could be an DAC / Streamer with a Pre but that would likely be more costly than a Pre. I used my HT Receiver for 2 channel, using a stand alone Pre made a big difference and the commentary on the HT pre using its own processing is legit. Unless their is a pure / direct mode in the Marantz it’s processing the signal from your DAC digitally all over again. Good Luck. |
Thanks @mm1tt77, for your input. As many others have stated, a dedicated stereo preamp seems a worthy alternative as a one-piece upgrade for 2 channel listening. Alas, @laps, the two room thing is a no-go for me. Everything for home theatre and critical stereo listening has to be in the one room I have, as there is no other proper space available. @benanders, the Marantz AVR has the ability to turn off the room correction and go to pure stereo. There is a Pure/ Pure Direct mode to cut out extraneous processing, but I find that mode pretty "blah." To my ears, Marantz provides a very enjoyable stereo sound, gutsy and musical. The speakers, btw, are Focal Kanta 2, new and still breaking in (almost there). It intrigues me how universally bashed my Marantz AVR is. You're a tough crowd! This Marantz was, until a year ago, their top of the line separate and as stated, does a creditable job with two channel audio. In all, I understand your collective bias towards pure audiophile gear and am eager to learn about it. My ears will no doubt be winners as a result. Robert |
The BlueSound Node is the Honda Accord of streamers. Affordable, works and sounds better than most give it credit for, and about as reliable as any piece of hardware gets. I won’t trash your Marantz because most of the criticisms are either speculative, or simply irrelevant (What difference does 10 dB improvement in dynamic range or noise from 80 to 90 dB make when the noise floor in your room limits dynamic range to maybe 60 dB? I live in a very quiet house, and the noise floor is 42dBA. My System is capable of peak output of about 110 dB, but my usual listening level is around 90. So, 90-42 = 48dB typical, 68 db maximum dynamic range). Your Marantz is a great piece of equipment and while Marantz and Denon are sister brands and do share a lot of parts, a high-end Marantz is a totally different and much more carefully engineered component than their mid-fi offerings. That just doesn’t fit the ego-fi narrative. Yes, room correction does happen in the digital domain, and most find it a worthwhile option. But even the best room correction, speaker placement, components and cables can only effect the input of the system into your room. It is the output of the room predominates what your hear, and improvements made in that function are almost universally the biggest value to be had in upgrades. Consider some acoustic treatments - sidewalls first, then bass traps, and ceiling. Profound improvements can be made in most listening spaces for under $1000 with packages from companies like Acoustimac. Their options for color and finish also enable a high degree of SAF. Acoustics is applied physics, and applied physics is math, so use their, or other online calculators, to determine your actual requirements. |
- 55 posts total