Streamers?


I have 2 dacs.
I like the r2r ladder dac for some music and the delta sigma for others.
I mainly listen to streaming, qobuzz and tidal, with masters and hires qobuz.
I do not yet have a network streamer though.  I cannot find one that I prefer and, being rural, I don’t want to start just running through streamers since it is a long drive into town to send equipment back (for those that allow inhome trials) so mqa pass through, dsd 512, 32/384 preferred.

Everything I listen to is sent from phone over bt ldac.. (not great)
I would like to fix that so I can play tidal masters, qobuz and my dsd files through streamer to, selectable, outputs to each dac.. preferably using the streamer to login to the services directly and not be required to have the path run through my phone or ipad and then to the dac.
Also, I would really like to find a network streamer that caches an entire track prior to beginning playback.   It is frustrating and really irritating, to start a track and have it interrupted 4-5 times during playback of ONE track because of my network here.
I actually have 3 internet services right now: starlink, a local wireless ISP and an

t-mobile 5g “hotspot” device on its own 100gb/month line. (ie, not shared with phone) and each of them have network “drops” of the stream.

One with cd ripper would be fine, but I do not need another dac, amplifier nor pre-amp, nor do I need roon etc.

Anything under $3000 would be great.. I cannot afford a $10000 network streamer..

Figured I would ask.. also am pursuing a daphile server, just waiting on hardware (at least, if it doesn’t meet needs, I can use for something else)

Thank you,

Matt
 

nevada_matt

Showing 1 response by larry5729

I have a Node 2i Bluesound streamer.  Do more expensive streamers really sound better?  If, why?  Has this been blind tested?