Streamer opinion.. Pease comment on validity.

I went from an Oppo Sonica streamer dac to a Lumin T2. I hear a much more detailed and natural portrayal in my streaming playback.

I totally believe this. From my own listening the Oppo DACs were severely overrated, but it's hard to tell from this experience if this is due to the streaming or the DAC. My guess is the latter. :)

Best,


E

@mgrif104

I never said that streamers have no value. In fact, it is precisely because they integrate our music library, online services with our phones and tablets that they have value.

I just worry about their value proposition.  A $2K streamer makes a lot more sense to me than a $20K streamer. :)

Best,

E

The 'audiophile' stuff is handled by the DAC. If the DAC can't clean up noise and jitter on the digital inputs, it's poorly engineered; look elsewhere."

The thing about DAC's is that they have limitations. I mean, even the best DAC on earth is going to have a problem if you have transmission delays lasting half a second. Some of this could be network related, some could be the OS and how "real time" the response to the USB request is, so I wouldn't put this all on the DAC per se.

I will say that modern DACs handle this much better, in the last 15 years or so, and that to me is the biggest reason to upgrade your DAC.

Streamers are unstable. Companies making them may come and go, the services they talk to (Tidal, Quboz, Spotify, etc.) may come and go and some one has to keep up. USB DACs require drivers, and the phone/tablet apps need to stay up to date.

My point to all of this is, a good streamer is worthwhile, but it's also not going to live very long. Your DAC and other electronics will be working long after the streamer has turned into a brick because of the latest iOS/Android upgrade.