What's the best non-DAC streamer?

I should say that like an earlier poster, I do have a magna mano ultra streamer. It’s raspberry pi based with a really nice linear power supply and high precision fento clocks. It sounds great, but unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to try other streamers.

It feeds an audio mirror tubadour iii-se, Don Sachs 6sn7 pre, first watt f4 mono blocks, Coincident PRE chain.

Great discussion. I have an ifi Zen Stream and I’m curious if the ones mentioned here are much better?  It’s the next thing on my list to upgrade. I just want a streamer “transport”, I don’t need any storage or server functions. 

If you want storage, ripping capability and Roon core, any of the Innuos ZEN line are outstanding pieces. If you're looking for just streaming without the storage, etc, then the new Innuos PULSEmini is really an excellent piece. The new Innuos PULSE is also starting to ship now as well. So, we're actually moving out a ZEN Mk3 from one of our demo systems to replace with the new PULSE as in this system we don't need all the extra capability of the ZEN Mk3. I also definitely prefer the new PULSEmini over the iFi ZEN Stream, but that should be expected for the price difference.

@everest_audio thanks for the suggestions. The Innuos Zen S may actually be the setup for me. I don’t need the DAC function but the ability to rip CDs is very nice. I’ll check out the Pulse too.

 

Did you notice if the Pulsemini sounded better than the ifi zen?