Streamed music sounds awful in my system and I don't know why ....

@dr-john Give ROON a try and put the ROON Core computer in another room. I have my ROON Core server (a $500 PC) behind my office door next to the router. I have set up the computer to automatically boot up at 8AM and shut down at 2:30AM each day. I can stream only during those hours (need some sleep too).

If you do not have Ethernet near your stereo, then you can use a $75-$150 PowerLine adapter to stream the music bits on the copper electrical wiring of your home. This will get your music to your SimAudio Mind2 DAC on a wired connection. Which I prefer over WiFi.

I use the PowerLine method to connect my Livingroom and bedroom gear (ROON READY Endpoints) to my ROON Core. The office system is a direct Ethernet connection. Both methods of connection, PowerLine and direct, sound great.

The only caveat being that the ROON Core should be on the non-PowerLine side of the home network. This was an issue for me when playing hi-res streams from ROON. When I moved my $500 Core server to the faster side of the network all hi-res content was streamed perfectly to the ROON endpoints.

If you do decide to try what I am recommending, then the very best sound for your DAC will likely be on USB. I am assuming the Mind2 streams on Ethernet. If I am correct, then I would recommend a Sonore OpticalRendu. There are a few cheap ways to convert the Ethernet to Fibre Optical. You then take the fibre into the OpticalRendu and from the OpticalRendu you go by USB into your DAC. The glass of the Fibre cable will kill most of the analog noise that can get into your DAC. So, who cares how internally noisy the Core server is or where it is located.

BTW - your DAC is ROON READY. the highest level of compatibility.  Mind2 via Ethernet streaming and the OpticalRendu is also ROON READY via USB streaming.

@kota1 If you go with ROON or JRiver you can have the very best room correction in the world. That is software-based convolution filter that runs on the ROON (or JRvier) server. Only negative is that it only works for streaming, not turntables, tuners, or other analog pieces. This is where an audio gear-based DSP solution would work, though it would not be as powerful as the Convolution filter.

The Convolution filter is generated by using third party DSP software. The Convolution filter is built to a defined standard interface that ROON and JRiver speak. Analogous to the ROON RATT protocol for audio gear.

@dr-john You can use a computer to stream with amazing quality. The easier way is to buy a dedicated audio server (really a computer) as mentioned by many others on this thread and be done with. If you are a bit more technically oriented, then you can easily get a CHEAP computer based streaming system setup as I described previously (I did not dive deep in the description).

Most people on Audiogon go the dedicated audio server way and that is a great choice for most. Though this is not the way I do it.

BTW - I was also curious about the elephant in the room. Why use the Windows media server app if you have MIND2?