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Good DACs have known benefits, But what About Streamers

Hello Folks,

The benefits of quality DACs are well know to our ears and our rationale thinking. Many of us have solid evidence of this. I am currently in between DACs and  reverted back to using a SONOS Connect for my DAC on my system and the decline in fidelity from my Auralic is dramatic. As one person but it, it isn’t a fair fight.

But with the upgrades that I am doing to my system, the McIntosh PreAmp will have a wonderful DAC in it. But I still need a streamer. What I am wondering is if there is a substantial difference between streamer technology and will I be able to notice the difference between different DAC/Streamers when the DAC is by-passed. Will I, or would you, be able to notice the difference between a Auralic, Pro-Ject, BlueSound, Sonore or any other piece of equipment?

Thanks in advance for your constructive thoughts.

Currently Streaming... early GP & The Rumour! What a great band they were.
pgaulke60

Showing 1 response by richdirector

richdirector's avatar
richdirector
266 posts
 
The DACs I have used have all been inbuilt to the streamers I have used LINN sneaky / magik / and Klimax but the massive sound difference has been probably on the DAC side. 
I also have an ARCAM CDS50 which is a cheap SACD / streamer but can act as standalone DAC so will experiment to see if I can hear difference .... I have had the Klimax and Arcam playing the same playlist into separate inputs on my pre and done a/b comparisons between them and not surprisingly the £5k one was better than the £700 one ...... but not by a huge amount.  

Separate streamers into the same quality DAC would probably see less of a difference 
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