For those that have separate Streamers & DACS


What are some of your favorite streamers/servers strictly from a sound quality perspective?  Please assume a stand-alone DAC.  I've read such a variety of opinions on streamers and was interested in opinions from those that have tried different streamers on with their DACs.  

badgerdms

by reputation:

innuos

lumin

auralic

aurender (already mentioned)

sonore (i use the optical rendu and roon)

sotm

ifi zenstream is recent candidate for high value solution...

 

 

For servers, no rendering except for those with optimized usb, I2S or SPDIF ports, meaning no direct connection to motherboard and isolated power supply. Also like servers with two network ports such as Antipodes or custom atx builds.

 

Streamers, large variety of good ones, this is where to do the rendering. Personally, I prefer optical post server, Sonore OpticalRendu with quality external lps or Signature SE with built in lps.

we have tried most of the major players auraylic aurender innous

 

sotm memory player baetis now 432evo

 

the innous sounded far better Then aurender and auralic the evos sounded even better and are 100 percent modular and upgradeable

 

The Evos run roon in a novel way by utilizing separate cores of the cpu for independent Roon operations one core runs Roo. while another runs backend processes while another core addresses file retrieval,

their founder and lead engineer is a very senior level Linux programmer

when Roon. is implemented this way Roon can offer superior sound quality

 

wedid a shootout of our 7500 Aeon vs a well known competitor whose server with upgraded power supply is 22kand the Aeon soundedjust as good

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect nj

US importer 432EVO

 

 

 

OP,

An Aurender streamer is a complete solution. Plop it down, hook it up, open your iPad App… your done. For me… the best sound I have had… simply controlled and integrated with all my local files. No screwing around.