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

flatpopely said:
Does it sound like one though?
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I don’t care, hifi is a hobby, an escape from work. I know and appreciate the “it’s all about the music, how it sounds” opinion but I have no issue admitting I also like the boxes, the aesthetics, the cables, the swapping, the whole shebang. If I pay more for a fancy box that sounds the same as a plastic cased pi or dell optiplex, it’s my shout and dosh. It’s great for folk that you can get fantastic sounds so cheap these days, judging by all the expensive hifi around I’m not alone in wanting something that looks the business as well as sounding top notch.
 
flatpopely said:
Serous question. Why would you use a dedicated streamer over a PC and a DAC?

To me my PC plus DAC is as good as CD and vinyl.
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I would say not everyone wants a PC as part of their music setup and may not have a spare PC to dedicate solely to music listening.
I've travelled the journey from PC/Foobar to Bluesound to Innuos Zen Mk2 and now feel entirely satisfied - all of my music in one place plus streaming options in the shape of Qobuz/Tidal & Radio Paradise with the option to use the Zen as a Roon core at some time in the future should the fancy take.
 
matfff said:
Hi, it takes a digital source, say from a NAS or PC (audio files say, or Tidal, Internet radio e.t.c) and does the DAC and provides an output that can go onto be amplified. Some contain their own pre and power amplification.
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Then I think the OP question is really the same as "High end DACs and Preamps, waste of money or not, please?"
 
webster said:
I would say not everyone wants a PC as part of their music setup and may not have a spare PC to dedicate solely to music listening.
I've travelled the journey from PC/Foobar to Bluesound to Innuos Zen Mk2 and now feel entirely satisfied - all of my music in one place plus streaming options in the shape of Qobuz/Tidal & Radio Paradise with the option to use the Zen as a Roon core at some time in the future should the fancy take.
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As long as you’re satisfied and enjoying what you’ve put together that’s all that matters. My mate can’t understand why I have so much hifi kit but then spends loads of money and time trying to get more horses from one of his bikes or cars that are already fast as f**k, but it’s what he enjoys doing with his spare time and I do enjoy the odd blast he takes me on, even if it scares the sh1t out of me now and again.
 
mandryka said:
Then I think the OP question is really the same as "High end DACs and Preamps, waste of money or not, please?"
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Might be a waste of your money or the OP’s but not mine.

DACs are closer to each other, but are different sounding. PreAmps don’t seem to get the same sound bite rolled out anywhere near as much “they all sound the same” and can have big differences.
 
Buy the best measuring dac you can afford for the input of your preference and wire it up to any old computer based sh1t as a source. Bits are bits, assuming your dac is source quality agnostic on your preferred input thats all there is.

A 2000 quid server sounds no different to a pi with the right dac. If you have a crappy input on your dac that let's electrical noise through then all bets are off
 
Streamers are basically computers. As most vendors of branded audio streamers have a very poor security patching story, allowing these to connect to the Internet is risky.
Something like a Mac Mini is actually a lot safer and can be updated to support new services
 
Amber Audio said:
Might be a waste of your money or the OP’s but not mine.

DACs are closer to each other, but are different sounding. PreAmps don’t seem to get the same sound bite rolled out anywhere near as much “they all sound the same” and can have big differences.
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I've got a pair of old Rogers JR 149 speakers, which have very small bass drivers, and I've been experimenting with ways to make the bass more . . . present. Things like changing the height, the distance from the back wall, the amp etc.

Well something happened a few weeks ago, I got a new second hand DAC, a Theta Chroma 396, and I put it with the system -- previously there was a Deltec Bigger Bit. The improvement to the bass was astonishing.

If a streamer includes a DAC I would expect there to be similarly significant differences. If it's just like my Raspberry Pi, then probably not.

This is my second Theta DAC, I've decided to collect them, just like some people collect LS3/5a speakers!
 
davidsrsb said:
Streamers are basically computers. As most vendors of branded audio streamers have a very poor security patching story, allowing these to connect to the Internet is risky.
Something like a Mac Mini is actually a lot safer and can be updated to support new services
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Not in my mind.....its the process of converting digital to analogue. So it has analogue output, which is not computing, I think.
 
davidsrsb said:
Streamers are basically computers. As most vendors of branded audio streamers have a very poor security patching story, allowing these to connect to the Internet is risky.
Something like a Mac Mini is actually a lot safer and can be updated to support new services
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Streamers don’t run a full OS so their attack surface is far less, you get the odd smart arse that gets ahead of the game and gets into non Computer devices like the print server hack advertising a youtube channel PewDiePie, but generally these devices are not gonna get pwned. They also boot and store using firmware so not able to get rootkits like hard disks. I don’t patch my hifi anywhere near as much as I patch my Win, Linux and Mac boxes. There is far less chance my hifi is gonna be an entry point for malware unlike my Dell/NuC/iMac.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119576/pewdiepie-printer-hack-t-series-youtube
 
I might be old school but............
It really seems to me hi-fi is not ‘’stable ‘’ these days and nobody longer agree on what is the best source, media, files or anything else.
As a reaction to this, personally I prefer to stay with all my ‘’analog ‘’ equipment ( separate preamp, amp, speakers) and add a DAC to it.
This allows me to get a better sound from my CD player, I can add another digital source as well but if the consensus comes back and most of the audiophiles agree a turntable is the best source, I will still be able to use most of my equipment.
Some trends in today’s hi-fi look like they won’t last very long so better not invest large amounts of money into these, IMO.
 
manicatel said:
Well the NDS sounds quite easily better than the ND5XS, as long as you’re into the Naim presentation, that is.
There are easily discernible differences, put it that way.
I would say that with this, & indeed with most digital replay gear, I feel the DAC makes far more difference than the streamer section. A decent streamer may make small improvements over a cheaper model, but I reckon you could hook a Sonos Port into a high end DAC & it wouldn’t disgrace itself.
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I agree. I prefer my nDAC/TXPS fed by a Chromecast Audio (for streaming, I still use a lot of CDs) to the NDX2/TXPS. Hence, I think the nDAC is better than the DAC section of the NDX2. I think the NDS slightly better overall with a single TXPS, with two power supplies it opens the gap on the nDAC/TXPS.

To answer the OP - I think there are differences, but whether they are worth the money to you is not something anyone here can answer.
 
richardg said:
Not in my mind.....its the process of converting digital to analogue. So it has analogue output, which is not computing, I think.
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That would be a computer plus a DAC, I was talking about the streamer standalone with external DAC, I don't want to derail this thread into DAC comparisons.
My idea of a streamer is a device that can playout audio streams from Internet radio stations, services like Qobuz and from a file store, either as an internal hard disk or a NAS.
All this comes with a user interface to select what you want to play.
 
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