STREAMER - WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

I provide science, analysis, measurements, other users’ experience, and my own 20 years of streaming experience as support for my views.  You launch poorly reasoned, ad hominem attacks.

No, I just use my ears and have clearly heard what better streamers sound like in the $6k - $8k range.  If you honestly can’t hear the difference between a $2k streamer and an $8k streamer I truly feel sorry for you.  Fortunately most of the rest of us can.  Pretty sure the OP won’t follow your 20 years of whatever experience and buy a $2k streamer, nor would anyone else here because it makes no sense and is a total mismatch.  Measure that. 

what matters is what the ears hear....

 

For what it’s worth, the Aurender is not the best match for the BAT DAC because the N20 is AES optimized. The BAT is USB optimized.  

Follow your own advice in the first part to confirm the second part. 

It might very well be possible that you prefer N20 > BAT via AES, or perhaps N20 > BAT via USB over anything else via USB. 

And then the particular AES / USB cable selection might make the difference. 

@patrickalston fwiw I had the RS130 in my system to audition.  It was my friend’s unit who bty had some problems with it.  Yes the screen is nice.  But the Pulsar that I ended up buying sounds better, imo. Innuos also has much better tech support.  FYI - The new Innuos Stream 3 is basically the same unit as the Pulsar so you’ll probably have better luck finding one of those to audition.  Best of luck with whatever you decide on.

BTW I’m about ready to upgrade my Pulsar to the new Innuos Zen NX.  It’s not quite half the $38k you said you’ll never spend but if you’re anything like many of the audio fools that contribute here the Pulsar or something equivalent probably will not be end game 😎.