Best streamer to replace my Mac Mini?


I'm looking for a streamer that cost around $2,000 to replace my Mac Mini. I'm torn between the Auralic S1, Lumen U2 Mini, and the Eversolo A8. Any suggestions out of those 3? Using the dac in my Macintosh MA9500. 

Thanks

128x128profoundprorva

Thanks for the replies, my McIntosh has the upgraded DAC 2 chip installed if that matters. The Auralic is my top choice so far since it also has a nice display and can run Dirac, shame it’s not a touch screen though. 

I've had an Auralic Aries G 2.1 for 3-4 years now with absolutely no issues. Sounds fantastic, and the user interface is very user friendly.

Before the Auralic I had an Aurender N100. This was the worst audio purchase I ever made. Every time the power would flicker or go out, the unit would not boot back up. I was on speed dial with Ari the rep for Aurender. To there credit they were very supportive. I sent it back to Aurender at least 4 times. The final time they completely rebuilt the unit. I got it back and made sure it was working...then traded it in to an authorized Aurender dealer.

I will say the short time it was functional it did sound good.

I would agree with a common sentiment on this forum....If your going to primarily listen to digital content...bite the bullet and buy a quality streamer/network player. Its a necessary evil for quality digital playback.

I'm sure you made a good choice with Auralic ....   They concentrate on streamers and seem to be well received.  

The Auralic rep just emailed me about router issues they seem to have, a bit concerning. 

“We have a lot of customer reporting that routers provided by ISP generally don't work well with high performance streaming, because they may not be able to handle multicasting (SSDP) messages without dropouts, or if your router is blocking certain (IGMP/ICMP) data packets AURALiC Lightning devices rely on to provide the best experience. Some routers (usually lower-performing models supplied by your Internet Service Provider) don’t handle this type of traffic due to their firmware, or, since this kind of UDP discovery data is more vulnerable, a weak network connection will affect this even as your other data connections seem fine.

 

Please check this article first and let me know if you would like us to further process your order. 

https://us.auralic.com/pages/before-you-buy

 

I must say you may need to get a Netgear or Asus router for the best network connection quality. Thank you”