What is the weak point in my system?


Help!  My system is 4 years old.  I have a BluesSound Vault 2 streamer (with all of my CD quality music) into a Chord Quetest D/A converter.  My amplifier is a Parasound A21+ driving Vandersteen Treo CTs.  All my cords and cabling cabling are  AudioQuest.  Then there's the preamp.

My Rogue RP-7 had an upper midrange glare so I swapped out the 4 tubes for warmer NOS Mullards.  That solved the problem.

Then I upgraded it to an RP-7 V2.  Even with the Mullards, the midrange glare was back and with a tilted up frequency response thinning it out robbing voices of any chest.  But, it was much more dynamic with greater 3-D imaging and transparency.  

So I bought a used Audio Research LS27 line stage (from 2010).  The midrange glare is gone (except at high volume levels) and the frequency response is much more neutral.  But compared to the RP-7 V2, it's a little foggy without the transparent 3-D or dynamics.

Posters here say there is not much difference in the sound of streamers, so what do you think is happening?

 

allstar

Tell me about your room. 

Snippet:

"By measuring our room’s acoustic behaviour, we empower ourselves to make informed decisions about improving its sound and lessening the impact of its transfer function. It’s a step many audiophiles skip for financial and aesthetic reasons but it’s a crucial one if we’re serious about achieving audio satisfaction.

The room is arguably the single most dominant factor in what we hear from our loudspeakers. It has more of an impact than any upstream hi-fi component. And by understanding the room’s transfer function and the challenges specific to different frequencies, including the important distinction between reverberation (as measured by RT60) and echo, we lift our listening experience whilst simultaneously disembarking the hi-fi hardware ‘hype train’ (gee, how I hate that phrase). It’s a bitter pill to swallow but while room correction software, loudspeaker placement and furniture placement can help, dedicated acoustic treatment is usually the only way to secure proper results. I know this from first-hand experience: since 2020, I’ve had three rooms treated with excellent results."

https://darko.audio/2025/02/why-your-room-is-your-most-important-hi-fi-component/

Posters here say there is not much difference in the sound of streamers

Misconception. The source matters the most because of GIGO. You want the purest and cleanest possible signal entering the chain so the rest of the components can preserve its quality.

Streamers reveal differences in sound quality due to variations in (in order of importance) clocking and timing, power supplies and noise control, digital output implementation and isolation, app and software design, and so on. Do not think naively, as some do, that streaming is “just 0s and 1s.” Yes, the data itself is binary, but the timing information that accompanies it matters far more.

The number of streamer trials I’ve gone through is almost on par with DACs. Every streamer sounds different to my ears. I would suggest upgrading your BS vault to like ICON if you want to stick with BS line.

I would suggest upgrading your BS vault to like ICON if you want to stick with BS line.

This could be good advice if his room is not the problem.