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

I concur that chasing the final few percentage points of performance often costs exponentially more, and the improvement may be perceptible only under ideal conditions—to highly trained ears and, of course, highly revealing gear. After I fulfill my commitments in other priorities, I’ll probably pursue the same path as @ghdprentice. Fortunately, before I can afford to do so, today’s market already offers excellent gear across all price tiers to serve both camps: those who pursue ultimate performance for passion’s sake, and those who prioritize value and practicality. Performance to cost ratio matters more than ever.

Bottom line is if you pick one of the top 3-4 companies specializing in streamers and digital playback the differences will be more a preference, not that you’ve made a bad choice, they all will be great streamers.  There are also some new kids on the block that offer even better “bang for the buck” but don’t have the track record, history to lean into and aren’t as safe a pick.  Streamers matter, I’ve had 4 different streamers over the course of the last 6-7 years, they all had differences in sound.  Good luck.

To the OP - This topic on streamers has come p many times before.  Here’s one of my prior posts that summarizes best my owes on the topic:

“1)  Streamers work solely in the digital domain, and as such have no sonic signature of their own.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t differences in the sound across different streamers, because streamers do differ with respect to the noise they produce or suppress.  This noise - or its absence - can affect the extent to which you hear the true sonic signature of your DAC.  Many mistakenly attribute this interaction to the sound of the streamer.

2) There are relatively inexpensive streamers that are state-of-the-art in terms of minimizing noise.  This is relatively easy to measure.  

3) There is a wide variation among DACs regarding the extent to which they may be affected by noise from a streamer.  In the prior thread I shared with you, a general consensus emerged that the OP’s ARC DAC was probably highly insensitive to streamer noise, in part because all signals were reclocked.  Having said that, his DAC was very sensitive to RFI/EMI, so he could hear a significant difference between an $80 vs. $230 coax cable connected to his DAC.

4) Because of #3 above, you might be able to get away with a Bluesound or Wiim and experience great sound, depending on your DAC.  But because of #2 above, you can spend a little more than what a Wiim or Bluesound costs, but definitely under $2k, and have a high end streaming system with any good DAC.

5) You do not need to spend $10k (or $29k for gods sake) to have a high end streamer.  But there are $10k+ streamers out there that are beautifully made and wonderfully engineered that will sound great if you have a great DAC.

Hope that helps.  Good luck in your journey.”

Eversolo T8 is a great streamer, no DAC included, great software, roon ready, and much better value for money than Lumin

to the comments above, my 2 cents

-- i believe the notion that even demanding affluent audiophiles need to spend as much on a streamer as they do a dac or pre or power amp is obsolete, based on new offerings appearing in the marketplace

-- putting a fiber converter before your streamer or dac can be beneficial but quality of implementation really matters.... cheap commodity converters with smps power create their own noise pollution and different fiber media converters can degrade sound (try a finisar pair versus trendnet or a no name pair!), best stick with good value audiophile products like sonore lhy etc etc

-- smart money in this space tries the higher value streaming solutions, then critically compares these to vastly more pricey alternatives on a returnable basis (dealer demos, used purchase, money back trials etc etc)... then be honest about whether you can truly hear the difference... we all know way too many of us listen with our wallets not our ears