Importance of streamer in audio chain

Buy a streamer with great support.   These are computers.....

I used to have a Sonos Connect that was modified by Modwright I think, they redo the clock and put a nice coax jack, power supply I think... serving up my music library that is all WAV files ripped to a network hard drive.. It sounded great.

I got the upgrade bug and bought a Aurender N150, the entry level but still $3500, now I have my WAV library on a SSD that is mounted in the Aurender. It goes USB to my Schitt Yggdrisal DAC and its no comparison, the Aurender sounds lightyears better for the same music. Then I read guys talking about how they got the more expensive Aurender and it blows away the entry level one...

Long and short is digital aint all the same, a high quality, super well engineered quiet streamer like Aurender will take you system to the next level.

Probably even a Bluesound or one of the other budget streamers is worht while.

@brianportugal I’m among those who hasn’t been able to notice a meaningful difference when even partially controlling for different streamers in my home.

I’ve stuck with my comparatively inexpensive DIY since I like the freeware interface well enough and failed to notice predictable differences between it and much “better” models. Like a previous post stated: support and software should be your primary concerns. Streamers are limited-purpose computers.

The rest of our respective systems are fairly different, though, so YMMV, who knows. No one for sure yet. 😉

If you’re using WiiM internal DAC, without a doubt you would notice the difference by upgrading. Now the question is what upgrade would bring the most ROI. I’d say start with a DAC. In that system something along the lines of Chord Qutest would be a step in the right direction. I tried WiiM Pro and the internal DAC is just not that great. You can get a decent streamer/DAC combo as well (i.e. Lumin or Auralic on the lower end of the price spectrum). I prefer separates for more flexibility and better upgrade path.

you will definitely notice a difference if you want to.