New streamer needed
My streamer, 10yrs old, stopped functioning. Now I am listening to CDs again with the transport of the older Accuphase DP-67 and Merason Frerot DAC. The combination sounds great, very detailed and transparent. Now I am wondering how much money I would need to spend on a new streamer to match that sound level and which brands and models to look for. Any suggestions, possibly also from people who know the Merason and/or Accuphase? I am using Qobuz for streaming, and wireless options would be great too. Thank you.
@davidtru +1 to add to his questions, can the DAC stage of the current CD player be used by the streamer(digital ins)), since the OP likes the sound? |
- I am looking for a streamer only, as I have a separate Merason Frerot DAC, preamp and power amp - Roon is not important, Volumio maybe yes - It's for my main system - Headphone option not important - Wifi - (Needed) budget is part of my question, but preferably <2500. Can be used too - The Accuphase can be used as a DAC by the streamer, but sounds better with the Merason |
I recommend a used Aurrender N100. But any Aurender you can afford. I own two. If you do not have the upgraded power supply for your DAC, I would also recommend that. I have heard the N100 against streamers of a lot greater value and besting them. Very natural sounding and detailed. It is very well built and the Conductor app is very well liked and funtional. i would avoid the Roon. Unnecessary cost and I don’t think it will be around for the long term.
Also, do not get one with an internal WiFi. They tend to perform very poorly and be unreliable. Just buy a cheap wall wart WiFi extender and plug in next to your system, plug a short Ethernet cable into that.
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@stievus if you can stretch it, there are few used Aurender N10 streamers on US Audiomart. |
ugh. There are so many threads on this exact topic, just in the last month. You should do a search on the topic. But, in a nutshell, there are two separate camps on this topic lurking here on this forum. One argues that spending a significant amount of $ on a streamer can be a waste of your precious resources, because the science, measurements and their experience tells them that beyond a basic level, there’s no difference in sound. The other camp argues that based on their experience, there are clear differences, and therefore recommend spending upwards of $10k in some situations in order to optimize one’s system. I'm squarely in the first camp. So here goes: The only distinctions across streamers has to do with levels of jitter and other sources of noise. These are easily measurable. If your DAC is good at rejecting noise, you can assemble your own streamer for as little as $150 and it will sound great (and which I’ve done as an experiment myself). However, if you want something less kludgy than a Raspberry Pi, and you want a streamer that measures - and in some situations may sound - even better than a Pi (and measures and sounds comparable to some of the extremely high $ streamers out there), then there are a bunch of well regarded products that cost between $400 and $1k. They include the iFi Zen, the Volumio Rivo, Holo Red, Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra, the Primare Np5, and probably a bunch I’m forgetting. I have both an iFi and a Pro-Ject. Btw, I’m a Roon fan, and also use Qobuz, which integrates seamlessly with Roon. Happy to share more if you’re interested. Good luck.
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oh, btw, totally disagree with @ghdprentice regarding the long-term prospects of Roon (keeping in mind what I’ve already said, which is that I’m a fan). Roon very powerfully integrates your cd collection, burned on a NAS and/or residing on a dedicated server, with whatever your streaming service is. But the really brilliant differentiator for Roon is their software works with almost everybody else’s hardware. This is particularly useful if you have multiple systems - you can mix and match and change your streamers and dacs to your heart’s delight. Finally, the Harman acquisition secures Roon’s future, and hegemony, for a long time, IMHO. Most of their higher-cost competitors are small, specialty companies. |
I’ve been in kind of a similar situation relative to price range. Only that I’m looking to upgrade my current streamer. Which sounds great, but tends to be quite glitchy (Pi2 design Mercury). Within that contending field - Volumio Rivo, Lumin U2 Mini, used Aurelic or Aurender etc. But why not Eversolo DMP A6 Masters edition or even the A8? The A8 is a kind of all in one. Not the direction I’d prefer to go, but is supposed to be so good in its components and design to be worth it. The British Audiophile did some nice comparisons between the A8 and and (I think) Aurelic streamer:
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Thanks for all the suggestions of brands and models. Not sure about the Eversolo, but the Volumio Rivo seems to match very will with the Merason Frerot. However, I prefer a streamer with the option of adding an internal 4tb ssd card. And then, of course, is the question is how it will natch with the rest of my system (Audible Illusions Modulus 3A, Belles SA-100, Audio Physic Caldera. Still some work to do to find this out... |
mdalton, indeed there are many threads on the topic. However, my initial question about this was related to the fact that my current (older) streamer broke down and I then connected my (older) Accuphase transport to my DAC, which sound blew me away. What should I invest, and which ones to check, to keep me blown away :-) |
I curious as to your statement about the future of Roon. I am not a Roon user and have no axe to grind here. I have seen it used and while it impressive I just simply don’t need it. I have wondered why a company like Apple doesn’t torpedo it. Apple Music service and Qobuz both seem to offer Roon like features about music that you choose to stream. Roon will integrate stored music into the streamed music in your library, but Apple also does this with music that I had previously scanned into iTunes or purchased from iTunes. It would seem to me to be easy to access any stored music and then integrate it into the UI, thus obviating the need for Roon
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@stievus seems you’re comparing older CD’s to streaming; you’d probably do well to make sure it’s not just different file quality vs. device performance differences you’re perceiving. CD files (production data known) vs. streamed files (production data often unknown) can easily be apples to oranges. |
The pro-ject is designed to facilitate the direct connection of an external drive to a usb input, and I think the iFi is as well. not sure about the others I referenced, but you should check. Regarding the difference in sound you heard, there are two other reasons I could think of: 1) It could be that your DAC is not fully immune to jitter or other noise introduced to it from either your streamer or your cd transport. If that were the case, you could hear a difference between the two. Btw, you never mentioned what model your old streamer was - that could be the culprit. 2) When you changed to cd, you listened intently for differences, and could simply be hearing what you were listening for. That’s a classic opportunity for confirmation bias, something we’ve all experienced a time or two. For a more in depth discussion of that, you could check out the thread “The Emperor Has No Clothes” (though full warning, you’ll have to wade thru a lot of discussion of cars!). Snd regarding synergy with your system, the folks in my camp generally believe that a streamer, properly implemented, does not have a sonic signature of its own. That’s established in the analogue realm, which means somewhere between your DAC and your speakers. Hope that helps.
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Same with me relative to storage. I’m equally torn about the Rivo. I keep coming back to it since I’ve already got a decent power supply that would work with it - which very much makes a difference. Alpha Audio had a pretty high opinion of it as long as the power supply is upgraded and you use aes/ebu for the output. Volumio OS is also unique, in that the plugins offer some advantages. Music Shield can calm down the CPU to reduce jitter, and the app itself offers up sampling options as well. I’ve found both to make a palpable change in SQ overall. |
I may be in over my head here, but I don’t understand how you were streaming previously. If I’m not mistaken, the Accuphase is a CD player (i.e., both a transport and an internal DAC), but it doesn’t have streaming ability does it? And based upon my advanced research skills (called “Google”), the Sony is an “optical block” associated with a CD transport. Am I missing something obvious? How have you been streaming Qobuz with that setup?
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CDs when played back on a top notch player or a transport fed into a good dac sound really good. As a matter of fact trying a very modest transport, Audiolab 6000CDT, into my Bricasti M3 DAC was the driving factor for my streamer upgrade. I just couldn’t stand listening to the built in network renderer Roon endpoint. One of the biggest differences was how articulate and engaging the CDs were. Yes there are potentially different masters on Qobuz and not necessarily the same as the CD and you can hear it in the mix but the emotional engagement aspect wasn’t comparable no matter how many songs/albums from Qobuz and Tidal I compared to CDs. Don’t you love it when you ask for advice and you get a response claiming that you’re pretty much delusional because what you hear, none of that is real, it’s all in your head. The details, transparency and depth is all confirmation bias. Or your dac is not entirely immune to jitter. Or it is both confirmation bias and your dac sucks. |
+1 @romanesq it’s also amazing what a couple of $30 network switches can do for sound quality. Jitter and noise can be mitigated in a big way before getting to the streamer. Made an enormous difference in my setup, and am convinced it can elevate any already revealing system. |
'In your case the Accuphase machine is top notch. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the lesser streamers to reach or beat the baseline set by the DP-67.
Spot on response, the Accuphase DP-67 is a fabulous machine, difficult to surpass by the average streamer. That's why I asked for advice which ones to look for. If you have suggestions where to start and/or in what price range I would appreciate that. |
As I replied in my earlier post…Aurender N10, Lumin u1 are definitely worth looking into. I’ll add the Aurender N200 and Lumin U2. As to budget…you’re probably looking at a price range of $3,000 - $4,000 on a used market and $5,000 - $6,000 new. |
riccitone - haven’t tried many switches but did try two different Cisco switches: 2960 & Meraki. Alpha Audio has done a lot of tests on various models (via YouTube) in great detail but they go the copper (ethernet) way and not optical fiber. I had tried it their way too and the improvement wasn’t in the same ballpark as fiber. They indicate there are differences in the switches and categorize them overall as small. They do break it down among many different options including some of the commercial audio switches which don’t all get high grades. From my Verizon fiber connection, I’m continuing that rout with cascading Cisco and upgraded Finisar transceivers.
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“Don’t you love it when you ask for advice and you get a response claiming that you’re pretty much delusional because what you hear, none of that is real, it’s all in your head. The details, transparency and depth is all confirmation bias. Or your dac is not entirely immune to jitter. Or it is both confirmation bias and your dac sucks.” To quote a former U.S. president, “there you go again.” That’s just an ad hominem attack dressed up as a defense of the OP. I really urge you to dial it back. I stated very clearly up front in my first response to the OP exactly what my perspective is, and also made sure that he understood that there was an alternative perspective. And unlike you, I characterized that alternative in a fair and even-handed way. And with respect to your specific accusations, let me just give you one example of how hyperbolic your language is. I have never, in this post or any other, claimed that a DAC that is not completely immune to jitter and other sources of noise sucks. I have seen others make that argument, but I have never done so. My own opinion, if you care to consider it, is that DAC designers make deliberate design choices based on sonics and economics. Now I’m no expert on the following point, so I would invite others to correct me if I’m wrong, but I can imagine that an NOS DAC, which is obviously not over sampling, is also less likely to reclock. And I can imagine that building in significant noise filtering costs more $ at the margin (just like reclicking and over sampling). So I can imagine a designer might make an advertent decision to concentrate their spending on other aspects that, assuming the DAC has a clean signal from a streamer, are more likely to have positive sonic benefits. That is also why I imagine that some companies offer both reclocking/oversampling devices and DACs separately, so the consumer can choose more precisely what he or she wants to spend his or her $ on. And I can totally understand why someone would buy just such a DAC, because they like how it sounds! And that’s awesome, and I bet I’d enjoy it too! Finally, to @stievus , please be careful how you let anonymous posters manipulate your views in order to grind their own axes. |
@riccitone @romanesq you guys are highjacking the thread |
I swear, this is the last time I’m going to ask; I’m doing so because it might help me and others understand your situation and give you the feedback you’ve asked for. What was or were the exact streamer(s) - brand(s) and model(s) - that broke down on you? Am having a hard time understanding your reluctance to share that key data point. |
@mdalton I respond honestly based on my own experience. There’s nothing ad hominem about my response at all. |
Sonos Connect Ultimo, a Sonos upgraded to a highend streamer by means of a better clock, power supply and spdif output. Done by Magna, a Dutch company, you likely don't know. But it doesn't matter as the cd transport was my reference.
As to the other points, I have asked a question in this forum. I am convinced everyone has tried his/her best to answer it, and I appreciate that. Some answers are more useful than others, but that is okay. It's my view that every answer has its merits.
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@mdalton well the way you react to what I post is your confirmation bias. |
got it. I do have some experience with a Wired4Sound modded Sonos unit that I borrowed from a friend a few years ago. It sounds like yours does something very similar to what the W4S unit did, except the latter upsampled with a limit of 96 khz (spdif output). In my system, I didn’t hear a difference between that and a Sonos output to a Benchmark DAC1, but emphasis on “my system.” One other question I would pose that is way beyond my technical expertise is whether there’s a difference between the sound of something that comes in at 44.1khz and is upsampled to either 96k or 192khz- vs something that can handle a native rate of 96 or 192. These are questions best answered by someone other than me. |
I think “highjacking” is going way overboard. It may initially seem off topic to suggest a switch, but the result can help achieve where your suggestion comes into play. Which is to bring things to the level of high quality CD transport playback. Adding a decent switch will help regardless of how well a streamer is designed - until you get well above about 6k (Grimm Audio comes to mind). Is that what he’s looking to pay? But if bringing that up came across as side tracked, I am truly sorry. I think we are all here to help. Have to say just the same, your taking the position of authority in this discussion just as easily comes across as selfish, controlling and eminently entitled. So who’s really highjacking here? I’m excited about some adjustments that make a difference and wanted to share some findings. And if you read earlier, I also made a few suggestions of streamers to consider. @stievus I apologize if I went sideways on this and hope it’s all been helpful 🙏🏼
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