Streamers - Auralic, Aurender, Lumin, others...

As per prior post, differences are about noise.  But it’s not just the streamer.  Different dacs, even very expensive ones, can be wildly different with respect to their vulnerability to noise from a streamer.  In some cases, a dac may not sound noticeably different when hooked up to a Raspberry Pi or a Mac vs. a high $ streamers.  In other cases, for example some nos dacs, they are highly vulnerable to jitter, and same streamers could make big difference.  

I purchased the first round of Eversolo A6.  It had several problems and eventually died.  Eversolo service is great.  They replaced it.  But the stability of the unit is very poor despite continuous software updates.  It just has too many bells and whistles that it can't execute with stability.  I use Spotify Connect (don't shoot me).  Each time I advance a track, the signal disconnects and reconnects 2 or 3 times.  It also starts the song a millisecond late, skipping the beginning of the song.  I'm ready to replace it for a standalone streamer somewhere in the $1K price range (new or used).  The Holo Red that someone mentioned, seems like a good fit.  How would it compare to the Innuos Pulse Mini?  Or would the increase in budget justify a Lumin?

Don’t waste your money on those expensive streamers, after all they are just computers, get the Wiim Ultra or any of the wiim products…I bet you can’t hear the difference. Spend the money on the best dac you can afford.

Roon plays fine on an Innuos - I am listening to it right now in fact.

Tim

I’ve gotta say — I don’t really get the whole streamer thing. These companies love to brag about stuff like femto clocks to reduce jitter and all that, but as far as I know, when you’re using a USB connection to a DAC, the DAC’s master clock is the one that actually matters, not the streamer’s. I can buy that filtering out noise might make a difference in sound quality, but beyond that, I’m not so sure anymore.