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

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.
But how many years did it take Linn to integrate Roon and Qobuz into their ecosystem? Anyone with a laptop, or even a Squeezebox Touch for that matter, would have been years ahead of a DS user when it came to streaming.
 
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Bluesound (when I had it) was degrading the sound (particularly the bass) and that was via, most noticeably, coax out and to a slightly lesser extent optical out.
As soon as I changed to a Innuos (USB out only) into the same dac the sound cleaned up considerably with much tighter bass, near silent backgrond etc. - and this was into a Rega Dac R which was heavily criticised in one review for its USB input implementation.

I have the dac-r also and have read the what hifi review and the criticism of the usb. I couldn't disagree more. I changed from my cca optical to my laptop via USB and the USB was cleaner and more detailed for me. My laptop uses USB 3 / C and I wonder whether their review was based on USB 2 which I believe uses a lower voltage.
 
Read the article?
Put together the screen etc. with Ropieee. Did it a year ago.Was great. Don’t use Roon at this time so Picoreplayer with Jivelite. The interesting thing about the article was not the putting together of the Pi player but what he surmised later regarding the quality of the player.
 
But how many years did it take Linn to integrate Roon and Qobuz into their ecosystem? Anyone with a laptop, or even a Squeezebox Touch for that matter, would have been years ahead of a DS user when it came to streaming.
Don't remember how long it took, but I've using Tidal for ages/years, so that didn't take long. When they did add it all, it's always a free upgrade, as was the room correction, "Space"....
 
High end streamers aren't expensive these days, so no excuse not to use one. The Allo DigiOne or USBridge, with moOde or Volumio, is all you need. if by 'high end', you mean in terms of measurements & performance, rather than casework. :D
 
High end streamers aren't expensive these days, so no excuse not to use one. The Allo DigiOne or USBridge, with moOde or Volumio, is all you need. if by 'high end', you mean in terms of measurements & performance, rather than casework. :D

Hallelujah. Game set and match. :)
 
I stopped reading when he said 'You should be able to get it running from start to finish in an evening'.
To be fair the process does involve using a PC, so you need to set aside a couple of hours for it to update itself after switch-on until you are allowed to use it.
 
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As it happens, my Aurender N100H (which has been my sole digital source for over 3 years) is away for a screen replacement at the moment so I am using an Auralic Aries Mini with ifi PSU in the interim. They sound noticeably different. It's like there's a slight haze around notes and a more compressed soundstage with the Auralic. The Aurender is more insightful. That's not to say the Auralic sounds bad, it's a great product for the money and would do a fine job for most people.

Of course, many of you will call this confirmation bias and say I'm imagining it because it's all ones and zeros, but I'm the one that has listened to this system daily for a number of years.
 
Of course, many of you will call this confirmation bias and say I'm imagining it because it's all ones and zeros, but I'm the one that has listened to this system daily for a number of years.
I wouldn't - I'd say you're in a perfect position to judge subtle differences and to decide which you prefer.
Are you using the same dac with the mini?
 


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