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.

traubr

I totally agree that there's no point in looking at anything else until you get the primary/core gear optimized.  Clearly the weak link is the AV Preamp - those are just not optimized for 2 channel and they just can't be.  

So, I totally agree that you want to look at a preamp that has HT bypass - it's very simple...takes the front right and left preamplified output from your AVP and passes it through to the amplifier, so that you can still use it as home theater, while preempting the AVP signal for 2 channel listening and driving your amp directly. 

The Parasound is a pretty good product.  Your speakers are excellent. Only when you have a preamp to "match" will you have any chance to assess the digital source aspect of your system.  

Then you have to decide what you are lacking and what your objective is.  

BTW, my sympathies on having your listening room double as your wife's office.  I'd be like "are you done working yet?" at all hours of the day.  I hope you have a good headphones setup somewhere else!

Wow, a lot of people chimed in here. I was in a similar situation with a somewhat limited budget as well. After much research I upgraded from a Cambridge Audio Streamer/DAC. I went with a new Benchmark DAC purchased directly from Benchmark, it is their latest DAC with an A+ rating from Stereophile. Here is the nice part, 30 days to audition the DAC in your home with a full refund as long as you don't return the DAC all beat up, they will send you a prepaid label to return it! My impression, the best DAC I have ever had in my system! Brilliant job and made in upstate NY. Price? $1900 to my door and it's never going back. Good luck!  

I too have a limited 300+/- CD collection, and I will say without a doubt that they have never sounded as good as they have played as locally-stored rips on my Aurender N200.  This is not "sit and listen for it maybe hearing it" kind of stuff.  This is "get startled out of the other task you are working on" (most of my listening is done while writing or editing photos at the computer) kind of stuff.  Maybe this is partly due to the "bit-perfect" Winamp (recommended by Aurender to create your rips) files, and maybe it is all of Aurender's tech - their playback engine, power isolation, etc. - but something is providing a decidedly better CD playback experience.  I've got over a year of listening in at this point and I am still having "first time hearing it" experiences.  The app takes a while to get used to, but is better than what you describe, but not as good as Roon. Functional if not outright enjoyable.  But the machine - the machine is so sweet and so worth it.