I Mac or Streamer for source? or is there a difference?


Hello.
Should I use my iMac or buy a dedicated streamer to download music ? my "amateurish" reasoning is that I am streaming music in bits and packages of bits,  so should my hard earned  money be spend in a very good DAC versus buying a dedicated streamer? 
Just learning about streaming. Thanks for all your insights and opinions.
rockanroller

Showing 1 response by crn3371

Up to a certain price point there’s no difference. That price point being dependent on one’s system, and one’s ears. I started off streaming with a MacBook Pro running Audirvana, using USB out to the internal DAC on my Anthem STR integrated amp. I briefly tried a Bluesound Node 2i, but returned it as I could not discern enough difference in streaming quality and much preferred the Anthems DAC to that of the Node (MQA not withstanding). I’ve since upgraded to a Bel Canto streamer feeding a W4S DAC. This has given me a big increase in SQ, but at a sizable investment.