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High end streamers, waste of money or not, please?

I did use the Pi USB for a while but my feeling is that the optical from the Pi hat is a little cleaner in sound and I prefer its sound. Not tried the coax yet.
 
I use an ASUS netbook to get my digital sources to a DAC via an HDMI deembedder linked to the DAC by toslink. Sounds great to my vinyl and CD trained ear. To answer the original question, for me a high end streamer is a waste of money.
 
AndyU said:
Good question. I’d say the source is the DAC, because the DAC produces the initial analogue signal, and thus is the first stage that can lose information. Whatever the preceding digital chain is, it is essentially lossless.
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Yes and no.

There may be no loss of data (lossless) but there's a fair chance it will be adding to it by chucking some noise down the line. So lossless+ perhaps? :)
 
brab said:
I use an ASUS netbook to get my digital sources to a DAC via an HDMI deembedder linked to the DAC by toslink. Sounds great to my vinyl and CD trained ear. To answer the original question, for me a high end streamer is a waste of money.
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IMHO, any form of hardware calling itself a streamer is a waste; software>USB out>DAC is all that’s required
 
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I'm sick of my Rpi4 with volumio, mainly because of the UI and app. If the thing would stay connected it would be fine but the constant restarting of the Pi or app is unbearable. I originally used a fanless thin itx pc I built running windows OS and jriver set as media server. This worked really well as it was also a video media player and the app was solid and slick. My reason for changing to the Pi was jriver doesn't support Tidal/Qobuz etc plus I wanted something I could leave on as the fanless i5 got pretty hot at times. I've been thinking about auditioning an Innous zen mini as I feel it's as much as I'd want to spend on a stand alone streamer. Does anyone know how long It takes before you get into the music after turning it on?
 
Gavinder007 said:
I've been thinking about auditioning an Innous zen mini as I feel it's as much as I'd want to spend on a stand alone streamer. Does anyone know how long It takes before you get into the music after turning it on?
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It's instant.
I've got the model up from the mini and I don't switch it off although there is a 'shutdown' option.On the rare occasion I've used it the boot up process is less than a minute.
 
sq225917 said:
...anything ivor ever said about hifi was to make money imo.
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We did get suckered in, there's no doubt about that and the same applies to the h-fi press too. Having said that, my LP12 is knocking out some nice sounds these days.
 
Cereal Killer said:
IMHO, any form of hardware calling itself a streamer is a waste; software>USB out>DAC is all that’s required
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I used to think the same. I was running Qobuz on a Macbook into a Rega DAC-R. I then borrowed a used Linn Majik DS/1 to see if there was much of a difference.

The Linn stayed.
 
I have both, and i can't hear any difference, I put this down to a good DAC.

My amp is the DAC and also a streamer (a hi-end all-in-one) . I have Roonserver and Asset UPNP on my NAS.
Asset via Ethernet out into the amps built in streamer.
Roonserver via USB out into the amps built in DAC.
Both sound identical.
 
The source first theory still stand, it's just the cost of a decent digital source has come down in price compared to the rest of the chain over the years. That said my view is they are all much of a muchness as so many makers just implement as per the data sheet from the DAC manufacture and do little designing of their own. It's a few higher end/higher cost producers that have invested and made bespoke implementations that show the value or worth of some of the "Hi-End streamers/DAC" over the run of the mill.
Run of the mill perhaps gets you 80% of the way, for the classic 20% cost...... then the last 20% cost the 80%.... Somethings don't really change.

I personally really wouldn't give house room to a laptop/PC/Pi lash up system tethered to my Hi-Fi...... Can't be with all that nerdy computer business anymore, just want to plug in and play music and for my wife to be able to access it all as well. Over 10 years of Linn DS use, nothing I've seen has remotely suggested I took a wrong route, quite the opposite.
 
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