New streamer needed

That sounds like a good price. Which CD-Player are you using? Vinyl is also my number one.

@stievus Yes, very happy with price… when I saw it on TMR as a trade in, jumped on it immediately.
My CD player is a Marantz CD6007, attached via digital coax to my Chord Qutest, with the N150 attached via USB. Thanks. 

Whatever streamer you decide upon, make sure the user interface is easy and even fun to use. If it is a chore to work, you'll HATE it every single time you use it, and eventually you'll find yourself spinning discs instead.  If the Aurrender UI is top notch then for your money, I'd go with one of those. 

That the $299 WiiM Pro can offer a superb app while many of those selling streamers for four figures don't is telling. 

I don't think I saw what streaming service the OP uses in these posts, but if you are using Tidal, a streamer that supports Tidal Connect natively makes life simple and enjoyable. 

Many are waiting and hoping for a "Qobuz Connect" app to arrive soon - and for streamers to support it. 

Good luck. 

audphile1

3,790 posts

03-04-2024 at 10:59am 

@benanders that’s a solid advice! I did this as well. For the comparison I used dbpoweramp to rip to uncompressed FLAC. The software is free if you use just the basic features. CD rom drive is a $40 LG external unit. Nothing fancy. 

@audphile1 would the FLAC’s sound better if ripped with a weightier optical drive, SOTA USB cable and laptop with LPS? I would suggest my pref:

Teasing only in good fun - promise - just couldn’t help myself 😜

I still use a 10-year-old Samsung bus-powered optical drive to a desktop through an old Canon scanner’s USB cable, files sound indistinguishable from the original CD’s played back on an array of CD players / setups (some of which are far blingier than mine). It was particularly informative to compare the two formats on AIO streamer+CD player devices, since same sound from such a device implies truly no [audible] underlying differences resulted from my generic ripping setup.

This would actually be a really good scenario for taking advantage of that Wiim Pro return policy you admire. A happy-measurements device that many people like and good software support, but near bottom-of-barrel cost-wise, and compared (albeit probably sighted and subjectively…) to a real nice CD player.

@stievus , it could be a straightforward way to toe the water before diving in the deep end? If your expectations don’t get the best of you and your ripped FLAC’s do sound similar to the CD’s, that would rule out a more costly streamer. Only thing you’d be missing are the club points and bragging rights from a given high end streamer manufacturer. 😉

Of course, even if an inexpensive streamer option like Wiim sounded different than your CD player, that wouldn’t insinuate it being the streamer, as the DAC could also have that role. Or depending on how deep you dive into component expectations/suspicions/synergies/etc, interaction of a specific streamer x DAC, or streamer x DAC x interconnects, or…

This is also an excellent chance to do blind testing, but that approach seems remarkably unpopular on Audiogon. It saved me a lot of money to redirect at demonstrably influential parts of my chain, but to each their own so no pressure implied!

@benanders LMAO. I’d love to compare the two files though - one ripped with my $40 LG and another with that high end drive. But I won’t be buying it to do it because I’m pretty sure it would be exact same 💩 as my $40 drive and I would have to return the fancy burner. And that would be unethical.