I just went through this and got a Pro-ject Stream Box S2 Ultra. It definitely sounded better than my iPhone. Other potential improvements that I've found to have good ROI in terms of improving sound quality of my Pro-ject streamer are:
1. Turning off WiFi and using an Ethernet cable
2. Getting a better quality Ethernet cable (Supra Cat 8 has worked well for me and was a notable improvement over an AmazonBasics Cat 6 cable)
3. Getting the right USB cable. The Phasure Lush is working really well in my system. |
@soix I was using the Apple Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter with the iPhone. I'm using a Denafrips Ares II DAC. These were the improvements that I heard when using the Pro-ject streamer versus the iPhone:
- Broader & more 3-dimensional soundstage
- Better resolution of complex musical passages: Electric bass in Blue Moon Revisited on Trinity Sessions, Cowboy Junkies & Waltz for Debby, Bill Evans Trio
- Tonal colors are more evident
- Notes seem to hang in the air longer. Reverberations continue instead of being cut off.
- More presence around voices and instruments.
The improvements sounded quite significant to me & turning off the WiFi further improved my perception of the sound quality.
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@soix In addition to using an Ethernet cable from a WiFi extender, these are some other things that I did from which I heard a clear improvement. (i.e., so clear that I didn't even need to A/B test the sound quality...I knew right away) - I tried both an AmazonBasics Cat 6 Ethernet cable and a Supra Cat 8. The improvement with the Supra cable was about 50-75% of the magnitude of improvement by going to Ethernet
- I added an Audioquest Jitterbug to the USB output from the Pro-ject streamer. The USB from the Pro-ject is supposed to be optimized for noise so I was more than a little skeptical of the benefits from doing this. But, the increased smoothness and clarity was evident.
- I tried 5 USB cables (free USB cable from an HP printer to see if cables make ANY difference at all, Belkin Gold cable, Pangea Premier SE USB cable, Shunyata Venom cable, Phasure Lush cable). For an almost free option, the Belkin was okay, The Shunyata was clearly better. And the Phasure Lush was the smoothest sounding with the best resolution and the best at conveying the timing of the music. I LOVE the Phasure cable compared to all of the rest. The Shunyata is good, but the sound quality from the Phasure is at another level altogether.
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