I've made my streaming sound a lot better than when I started building my digital system last year. The sound quality from my Denafrips Pontus II DAC helps, but efforts to reduce the amount of EMI and RFI in my digital signal path seems to have even more effect. Changes which have produced a noticeable improvement include: (listed in order of more to less improvement)
1. Going from a PC or iPhone as a streamer to a dedicated streamer (possible reason: less electrical noise from general-purpose computing devices not optimized for low noise)
2. Turning off WiFi and HDMI outputs on my streamer & using Ethernet via a WiFi Extender.
3. Switching from an AmazonBasics Cat 6 Ethernet cable to a Supra Cat 8 cable
4. Using Qobuz instead of Spotify (Amazon HD and Tidal sound worse than Spotify Premium to me)
5. Putting a Audioquest Jitterbug noise filter on my streamer's USB output
6. Using a Stordiau Lush USB cable
Even though it takes work to get streaming to sound good enough to be enjoyable, the upside is that I have millions of tracks of new music that I can explore. What I like, I'll try to get as a local file for better sound quality.
1. Going from a PC or iPhone as a streamer to a dedicated streamer (possible reason: less electrical noise from general-purpose computing devices not optimized for low noise)
2. Turning off WiFi and HDMI outputs on my streamer & using Ethernet via a WiFi Extender.
3. Switching from an AmazonBasics Cat 6 Ethernet cable to a Supra Cat 8 cable
4. Using Qobuz instead of Spotify (Amazon HD and Tidal sound worse than Spotify Premium to me)
5. Putting a Audioquest Jitterbug noise filter on my streamer's USB output
6. Using a Stordiau Lush USB cable
Even though it takes work to get streaming to sound good enough to be enjoyable, the upside is that I have millions of tracks of new music that I can explore. What I like, I'll try to get as a local file for better sound quality.