For those that have separate Streamers & DACS

Aurender. It is all they build and there flagship is arguable the best. I have tried all sorts of MAC, PC, and others as well as owning an Aurlic Aries G2 for nearly a year. I now own an Aurender N100 and Aurender W20SE. You can see them under my UserID.

I always use a separate DAC.

Thanks.  My only hesitation on the Aurender is its lack of compatibility with Roon, but I hear nothing but good things about them.

BRYSTON Digital Player

https://bryston.com/digital-audio/bdp3/

Another vote for Aurender. I highly recommend their outstanding streamers for sound and build quality. Their proprietary Conductor app is robust and without the complexities of Roon. I have access to both Roon and Conductor apps and find myself using Conductor more often than Roon.,

by reputation:

innuos

lumin

auralic

aurender (already mentioned)

sonore (i use the optical rendu and roon)

sotm

ifi zenstream is recent candidate for high value solution...

Innuos (Zenith Mk3)

For servers, no rendering except for those with optimized usb, I2S or SPDIF ports, meaning no direct connection to motherboard and isolated power supply. Also like servers with two network ports such as Antipodes or custom atx builds.

Streamers, large variety of good ones, this is where to do the rendering. Personally, I prefer optical post server, Sonore OpticalRendu with quality external lps or Signature SE with built in lps.

we have tried most of the major players auraylic aurender innous

sotm memory player baetis now 432evo

the innous sounded far better Then aurender and auralic the evos sounded even better and are 100 percent modular and upgradeable

The Evos run roon in a novel way by utilizing separate cores of the cpu for independent Roon operations one core runs Roo. while another runs backend processes while another core addresses file retrieval,

their founder and lead engineer is a very senior level Linux programmer

when Roon. is implemented this way Roon can offer superior sound quality

wedid a shootout of our 7500 Aeon vs a well known competitor whose server with upgraded power supply is 22kand the Aeon soundedjust as good

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect nj

US importer 432EVO

OP,

An Aurender streamer is a complete solution. Plop it down, hook it up, open your iPad App… your done. For me… the best sound I have had… simply controlled and integrated with all my local files. No screwing around. 

ghdprentice all servers are easy to set up

1unbox.

2 plug in outboard power supplies 432Evo.

2: plug in ethernet and output cable.

3 go to players ip setup page Innous 432Evo.

4 432Evo and Innous select Roon or logitech media server.

5 launch roon app on iphone or android phone or tablet.

6 select playback zone, select music.

7enjoy.

so you don’t have to do some of those steps on an aurender, however you are stuck to only one listening zone, on one device.

you also

Dave and Troy

Audio intellrct NJ

Server specialists

Roon can allow you to send any signal anywhere and to many devices so you can of course play music on your main system you can also play music in any other room in your home through a Roon Endpoint

having a great sounding streaming loudspeaker like a a pair of kef ls50or a Naim Muso can give you a great way of enjoying music in your office kitchen or bathroom all controlled through the same superior interface

Bricasti M5 is another streamer to consider, their M3 DAC can be configured with the built in streamer. 

The best I have auditioned are the following two:

*Ideon Audio Absolute Streamer (using its own player, preferred over Roon)

*Taiko Extreme

To be clear I am not bashing the Innous, and others mentioned above, just my subjective top two. And no, I don;t own either of them😉

Auralic works for me. Aries G2.1 streamer feeding Vega G2.1 DAC, the DAC also benefitting from the Leo GX.1 Reference Master Clock. Excellent results. No Sirius yet 🤣🤣

Get an Aurender N20 it's the sweet spot, Aurender is a major brand with good support and resale value.

Computer based servers will have you fiddling around, forget it.

If you are positive you never want a pre-amp, I'd consider a Lumin U1.

People will try to confuse you with esoteric and exotic brands but where will they be in a few years?

An N20 is the best bang you'll get this side of 20 grand.

I started with a Raspberry Pi, which worked quite well, then "traded up" to an Aurender, which didn't. I dumped that in favor of a Bryston BDP-3 and have been happy ever since.

Visit resellers, audition what your research tells you could be options.

Make a shortlist, then...

You have to audition in your own system / environment. If you can't get a home audition, then cross that dealer / brand off your list.

Try with internal and external DAC's.

Try direct into pre-amp.

Take your time, your choice is important to YOU. 

I'm using iFi Zen Streamer USB to Wyred4Sound DAC2v2SE. The iFi Zen was a little kludgey for initial setup but it sounds far better than I expected. At a $399 price point I wasn't expecting much and I'm still pleasantly surprised.

The Zen stream was an interim purchase for me as my previous streamer had died and I needed something quick. I assumed I'd be trading up within a few months of finding my next streamer.

Maybe not though. I'm still really enjoying the heck out of the iFi zen. And I've got a Matrix Audio X-SPDIF 2 on the way to serve as an I2S converter between the USB iFi Zen and the I2S interface on the DAC. 

I’m using, quite successfully a SMSL SD-9 streamer connected to a Musician Pegasus DAC. I’m getting Tidal MQA which the MQA is decoded by the SMSL streamer, and the decoded signal feed to my DAC which doesn’t support MQA. I’m controlling the streamer with BubbleUPNP which supports access to Tidal and Qobuz. The SMSL Streamer only costs 399, and has excellent sound quality. Further downstream is a Wyred4Sound STI-500;integrated amplifier and Magnepan LRS speakers. Overall a great sounding system.

What I find funny is no one asked what DAC you have.  The best solution can vary depending on the DAC and what is the best input.  Many devices use USB.  This may or may not be the best input on your DAC.  

Also, you have not mentioned a budget.  These things range from $600 (Bluesound Node) to $47K (Pink Faun Double Ultras) that I am aware of.  Best I have heard have been Taiko, Pink Faun and Antipodes but they tend to be pricier.   

The point is there are are lots of brilliant solutions.  What DAC do you have?  Do you have a budget in mind? 

Started with Bluesound, moved to Lumin D2. Currently using the Lumin U1 mini with Exasound DAC. Moving to the Lumin T2 all in one solution. Best sounding streamer/DAC I’ve ever heard in my system. Don’t let anyone tell you a Bluesound is good enough for a streamer. It simply isn’t true. I’ve done the upgrade journey and a Bluesound doesn’t even come close to what these high end streamers are doing.

Another vote for Innuos Zenith Mark III. Simple, solid, easy to use w/ their iPad app, rips CD’s quickly & most importantly, sounds excellent! Sounds very close to my very good Basis turntable, Vector arm & Hana cartridge set up !

I started streaming with the entry level Naim, then to dCS Bartok, then a Vivaldi short stack, and onto my current and favorite of the bunch a Grimm MU1, feeding a Lampizator Pacific DAC. The Naim was fun to listen too, but not as resolving as I wanted, and while I always got the software to working it was glitchy.  The dCS products were built wonderfully and the software is rock solid, but the sound was analytical and not very engaging.  (I expect dCS has addressed this shortcoming with their new APEX DAC). Finally the Grimm MU1 is resolving and very musical. I have stopped looking at digital sources for now. My Grimm Dealer provided an in home two week demo at no charge, just return postage. There was no question after 15 minutes that the Grimm MU1 sounded better to me, in my room, with my other components than the Vivaldi Upsampler/clock/DAC. 

@verdantaudio +1 Server/streamers you mentioned are indeed the cream of the crop, add Wadax to list. These designers/engineers understand highest quality rendering, minimize noise and maximally diminish jitter. Far too many lose full potential of nice dacs with mediocre rendering.

I always get the feeling many here don't get the difference between servers and streamers. Servers per se don't do rendering, its the rendering capability built into many servers that is actually the streamer, many companies call these servers, really kind of misnomer, I'd call them server/streamers. Many have found internal streamers within these servers lacking, thus, the external streamers becoming more ubiquitous. Prior to this burgeoning streamer market, various usb or other filters were seen as solutions for the rather mediocre rendering within these servers, over time we've seen the streamers taking over, the full rendering capabilities are certainly superior to both filters and internal rendering.

I still don't get it with all the recommendations for some of these servers/streamers with lame internal rendering. Why spend that kind of money for what many relegate to server only duty. Most have relatively low processing capability, forget about running any good dsp, and slows down music software processing, thus, spending more time within noisy environment. They also require a switch of some kind to integrate external streamer, more complexity means increased risk of mismatched clocks and/or RFI entrances. I could also add duplication of services, why pay multiple times for duplication of services, I could make good financial case for Taiko Extreme, Wadax, Pink Faun, Antipodes K50, custom atx build, or any custom build vs. these servers combined with all the add ons. Get the top line server/streamer, connect directly to dac, decrease complexity with top flight rendering, what's not to like!

If this route not financially attainable, build a diy server with dual ethernet ports, use as server only, spend the bigger bucks on nice external steamer, stay fairly simple (server>streamer>dac), with relatively high sound quality at sane money. If one can't diy, plenty of guys out there doing custom builds, some at pennies on the dollar of the commercial builds.

@sns Couldn't agree more.  Actually running a separate server and player, even modestly priced ones (Roon Nucleus & Bricasti M5), will outperform many server/player combos and give you flexibility in the long run.  The key is making sure the server is only a server and getting rendering duty into another computer (dual computers in Antipodes K30 & K50) or into another device (Bricasti M5, Lumin U1, Weiss DSP 501/502, etc...). 

@lordmelton  Your setup is an example of topic I raised above, You prefer your 005 with I2S vs usb, and for exactly the reasons I stated. While your Aurrender does have somewhat upgraded/optimized usb, it is not 100% galvanically isolated, does not run off dedicated lps (I may be wrong here, believe you mentioned it does have separate transformer, this with switching power supply?) , and the usb board itself does not contain a dedicated power supply (this would supply filtering,perhaps voltage regulation), I"m not even sure of the quality of the clock on that usb board. the best rendering streamers and/or server/streamers do all this. Its not hard for me to believe you prefer I2S vs usb with 005 while I prefer usb with my superior usb rendering via OpticalRendu (which has every optimization mentioned above) with 005.

And this is with an Aurrender model with superior usb rendering vs most of what I see in server/streamers.

The iFi Zen was a little kludgey for initial setup but it sounds far better than I expected. At a $399 price point I wasn’t expecting much and I’m still pleasantly surprised.

The Zen stream was an interim purchase for me as my previous streamer had died and I needed something quick. I assumed I’d be trading up within a few months of finding my next streamer.

Maybe not though. I’m still really enjoying the heck out of the iFi zen. And I’ve got a Matrix Audio X-SPDIF 2 on the way to serve as an I2S converter between the USB iFi Zen and the I2S interface on the DAC.

put a decent 12v lps into the zs and it takes another meaningful step up in sq - for the $ just crazy crazy good... people over-use the term ’giant killer’ but i think it can apply here... or at least ’giant-matcher’...

note: my use is in roon-mode, with cleansed ethernet feed into the z-s, with sotm 12v lps - i won't purport to say it beats much more expensive ones in other modes

@sns I have a double tailed USB cable with the power pin taped over at both ends, so the signal side is not influenced by any RFI/EMI.

However the 5vdc power side ground is still connected. I have tested with and without 5vdc ground but ground sounds better.

My USB to I2s DDC is powered by a quality LPS, no power from USB.

I2s RJ45 cable into my Musetec 005.

The sound is superb but the USB and I2s cables are high quality.

I have thought about optical isolation but honestly the sound I'm getting is wonderful.

Appreciate all of the responses and opinions.  I agree that the DAC choice will have a big impact on the final choice of streamer, and also know that not too many folks actually build their own streamers.

Some things I have personally had in my system for sometime and kind of how this got started for me.  In my second system I had a Bluesound Node 2i going into a Chord Qutest.  I replaced the Bluesound with the iFi Zen Stream and noticed a surprising improvement.  Over time, I've upgraded my second system so that it now rivals my main rig and the last piece of the puzzle is the digital source and DAC.  I moved the Innuos Zenith MKIII into the system two to audition DACs and noticed how much better it was than the Zen Stream which started me wondering what would be the ultimate best fit for my final DAC choice.  Right now, the leader in the clubhouse DAC wise is the Merason DAC1.  I've also lining up a Bricasti M3 audition and an Ideon Ayazi audition for DACS and have already played with a few others.  Based on my system, I've eliminated anything Chord and Weiss.

Assuming I decide to spring for the Merason, some streaming options that I'm thinking about include the newer Innuos Pulse series, the Bricasti M5, the Auralic Aries G1 (not sure what the bump to 2.1 would get me), something from Sonore and maybe something from Aurender (but the lack of Roon does give me pause). 

System is Fleetwood Deville's, Backert Labs Rhythm 1.3 and McGary SA1E.

Streaming dacs are also good way to go, less complexity,  greater assurance dac/rendering interface optimized.

@lordmelton Yes, while your usb is relatively good compared to many, yuur I2S has greater optimization, don't doubt your fine results. And yes, your partially optimized Aurrender usb would benefit from external usb renderer via any number of streamers, the OpticalRendu being but one.

@verdantaudio If I'm looking at a streaming solution under $4K, what are the differences between the Bricasti M5 and the Antipodes S30?  Pluses and minuses with either?

@badgerdms System is Fleetwood Deville's, Backert Labs Rhythm 1.3 and McGary SA1E

that sounds a lot like Dr.Vinyl’s old system…he had that same setup last year

Several of the audiophiles I know with the long experience run fanless NUCs with separate LPS. The DAC associated in one system is a Holo May.

So, the Bricasti M5 is a player/renderer and lacks support for streaming services like Tidal or Qobuz.  It needs a server to pair with it to work.  This can be a computer, Roon Nucleus or a myriad of other servers.  
 

The Antipodes S30 will serve as a server and player.  It is not my first choice for that duty.  It is good as a Roon server assuming you aren’t running any DSD files but is best when paired with a player like the M5.  
 

if you were to opt for the Bricasti M3, best option is to get the network card.  It is a $1000 upgrade and is literally the same card that is in the M5.  That with a Nucleus, Nucleus+ Or Antipodes S30 or S40 (Nucleus + or S40 is necessary for DSD) will be your best performing options.  The M3 with network card from an S30 would be VERY nice.  
 

I believe the Merason and Ideon don’t have player options.  Assuming the same $4k cap, I would look at a Roon Nucleus with an M5.  This is a better combo than you would think and I know will outperform the S30 on its own.  
 

For what it is worth , I am currently using a Roon Nucleus with Bricasti M5 as Roon endpoint in my main rig, and can very much vouch for it.  Real happy with the M5 since acquiring it back in March of this year.  Considerable jump up in sound quality vs using Roon Nucleus as a server/streamer.  Best streamer solution I have used in my room.  Other solutions have included Bluesound Node N100 (the original cube), Node 2i, and Melco N1A.  Current DAC (since 2019) has been Chord Qutest.  Prior to that DAC was Bryston BDA1. 

put a decent 12v lps into the zs and it takes another meaningful step up in sq - for the $ just crazy crazy good... people over-use the term ’giant killer’ but i think it can apply here... or at least ’giant-matcher’...

note: my use is in roon-mode, with cleansed ethernet feed into the z-s, with sotm 12v lps - i won’t purport to say it beats much more expensive ones in other modes

@jjss49 Thank you for the advice, I’ll add the LPS to my upgrade plan. FWIW, my Roon Core is a SonicTransporter i5, which appears to also be a candidate for an LPS.

looks like this moderator doesn't like me commenting on audio Troy trying to push his stuff on here, this section is for comments about different subjects it's not for selling items there's a total different area of audiogon where you can do that, I guess audio Troy must be paying off the moderators cuz I haven't said anything wrong or violated any rules.

And then the question becomes what is more important....the DAC or Server.  This topic has been discussed many times on Audiogon.  I had Lumin X-1 which is a DAC / Streamer tied to a Synology NAS.  I now have a Lampizator Pacific with a Lucas Audio Music Server.  In my case, the Lampi Pacific did not lite up until I added the Lucas Audio LDMS.  I absolutely love the sound improvements provided by the LDMS.  Lucas Domansky is a computer genius and his customer service is 24/7.  I live in Arizona and he set up my LDMS including loading 7 tbs of music on the server remotely from the UK.  The SQ compared to my past systems is incredible.  

@cleeds  Only saying streaming dac CAN be good choice.

I do like the NUC servers, if only they had two network ports. There are some builders out there supplying various atx motherboard builds with customer requested options such as optical ports, optimized rendering ports a la usb, spdif. two ethernet ports with all of them. Also choice of Linux, Windows OS. Costs all over the place depending on build. Biggest issue with any atx build is power supply, atx boards require multiple voltages, big money for the good lps, probably reason for rare off the shelf examples. 

Extremely experienced streamers at audiophilestyle.com using either diy or contracted custom builds based on atx boards; or servers in Taiko Extreme, Pink Faun echelon. Ultimately, I believe in going the ultimate server/streamer route, no external streamer necessary. The all in one unit will have been optimally integrated with clocks and power supplies, result, likely less noise and jitter than mixing and matching various components from different manufacturers.

The all in one unit will have been optimally integrated with clocks and power supplies, result, likely less noise and jitter than mixing and matching various components from different manufacturers.

i think this is an important advantage of combined units... the interface can be managed using two separate units, clocking, cabling etc but a well engineered single unit would lock in a high quality solution

The Zenith Mk3 USB output is noisy.  You don't know what you are missing until you place a very good DDC on the USB output of the Zenith.  I am using an Audio-GD DI20 HE, and the difference in quality is outstanding with the DDC.

Taiko Extreme

Bluesound NODE $600.  Lumin T2 $4500.

I have a NODE and it is working well for me.  I don’t know how much better an upgrade would sound, because I’ve never hear anything else.

@tcotruvo I have a Node and upgraded the power supply by swapping in this board. Found the power supply for a fraction of MSRP on ebay. Sounds wonderful.