Inexpensive all in one options


Hello to all. it's been a while for me.

just had a major meltdown with my 10 year old setup and find myself feeling like Rip Van Winkle scrambling to find a new digital front end for a temporary system.  understanding a decade in digi can be like dog years, was hoping for help finding a decent streamer/dac with preamp capabilities?.

back story....right before Christmas, my amp went south and took the speakers with (ML436/Aerial 7B's).  I'm a part time hobbyist who generally puts together a decent system and enjoys for many years. until something compels me to upgrade/do it again, i just sit back and enjoy what i have. dead amp and speakers are very compelling. don't have the time to rebuild properly right now. all the research/auditions/time required are not doable now or anytime soon. need something to get by for a while...1-1.5 years ish.  Not having decent music available was/is not an option. amp and speakers were relatively easy. spent a couple hours researching then picked up a new amp and some pre-owned speakers here on agon.  ended up sounding pretty good and thought i was done. this gear will end up in my living room down the road after putting together the real listening room setup.

2nd week with the new gear, my PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport fails. fixed cost repair/refurb is roughly $800, so it's an easy no in my mind. off to the trash bin with the PWT. as much as i enjoyed it, actual usage was down to 10% max with streaming being the remaining 90%. Hi Rez is probably 75% of my streaming.  My Perfect Wave Dac mkII was still working fine and could keep me going/happy for a while.  done/all set again i thought. THEN!!....the PWD started acting up last night !!. so when it rains it pours. my entire 5 piece system has circled the drain in about 5 weeks. was left with a bunch of nice power cords, interconnects and speaker cables. that's it.

bottom line now/point of this long winded post is i need a quick replacement for my PWD. had used it has a pre-amp w/volume control into the ML/Aerial system (RIP) for many years and loved the sound of not having a stand alone preamp. would like to avoid needing to get a preamp now as well

What I need...bare minimum
Decent/good DAC
Streamer from my PC (wifi and ethernet cable)
Internet radio along with common/popular streaming services
Balanced/XLR outputs
Pre-amp w/volume control
Hi Rez capable (obviously)

Trigger for amp turn on would be a nice plus

would like to spend south of $2k and prefer new or something somewhat new-ish/only a couple years old tops. could go a little higher then $2k if "compelled" to do so. the only two options i've looked into are Cambridge Audio products.  The CXN V2 and 850N. both seem like they'd work fine and check all my boxes. Looking for other options my limited/one evening of research might have missed..... or a recommendation on either of the Cambridge products above. want to buy something asap so please chime in early and often.

**as a side ask.....have been using J River for 10 years (old version JR 18 lol!)). am guessing that will need to change depending on what i end up with?. any suggestions regarding  streaming software would be great.

thx in advance

cheers
Rip Van Winkle
Levy


levy03
The peach tree audio decco125 SKY should do what you’re after.

Find some nice used speakers and you’re good to go. Totem if you can snag some.

I set up one of my kids with the above. While not Dad’s system. Wow!

LaSpada audio sells decent wire on eBay.

Also look at Schitt stuff too.
OP It seems to me, there is something else doing on.. How many pieces of equipment did you loose, in what period of time?

2-4 I couldn't quite follow.

My equipment is 6 months to 65 years old. The only failure I had, I caused.  It was a cable drop!  Why is your equipmed failing?
That would be the only question for me..

Is the stuff just poorly made, not being taken care of, used roughly or is there and electrical issue? All equipment requires maintenance and a GOOD VAC supply that's maintained at 120 VAC..

Regards
Please call us we have a ton of experience with streaming dacs and all in one units

We have nad, naim lumin,Micromrga and many others

Dave and troy Audio intellect nj
thanks for the suggestions. will look into them all for sure.

oldhvymec2: that's the first thing i thought of too. something had to be going on to cause all these failures. checked everything and found no issues. i have 2 dedicated/fuse box direct lines for my hifi/home theater setup. 15A for HT and a 20A for HiFi. both work fine. top shelf pc's, interconnects and speaker cable as well.  Levinson's are known for cap issues and mine were old. Aerials were pushed hard by the ML436. both components had a hard working life. my thinking is the ML went bad and pumped a lot of distortion into the Aerial's at high volume. PWT/PWDII did not blow up/shut down. vital features failed instead. disc tracking/recognition for the pwt. Hi Rez recognition and playback issues for the pwd. seems to  still works fine for reg and low res but i don't listen to much of that anymore. much prefer higher rez recordings

just to be clear. i already purchased/have the replacement amp and speakers. new adcom gfa875se and lightly used sonus faber sonetto viii's. sounded pretty good......until my front end started failing within days.

the more i think about this, the more i think i posted on the wrong forum. a good DAC that can stream/play a wide variety of internet and computer music (especially higher rez) is what i need. pre-amp with volume control is a *near* must too.

thank you for the input/suggestions and i welcome more
Can’t think of any "good" DACs and streamers that are inexpensive.
Soekris 2541 is a great DAC with rotary and remote volume control; cheap. Sold out.
If you can get one, pair with an Allo USBridge Signature and load piCorePlayer yourself. LMS will stream anything, all radio stations. Less that $2000 all in including a 1TB SSD for storage and LPS.. And will stream from NAS etc.
The only catch is you will need days to set it up. No help from India. Everything is online. If I can do it you can.
Close enough to SOTA for "small" investment.