A/B Comparison On A Pair Of Moderately Priced Streamers

@scottya118 

The short answer is NO. This would be a lateral move at best, if that! IMO, N100 is better than Zen Mini. Having said that, to get the best out of N100; the quality of DAC, USB & PC cabling and rest of the system is just as important. 

At moderately priced level, there are so many options to put together a decent sounding digital streaming front end. The devil is in the details. What have you done to optimize your Ethernet i.e. the connection between your router and streamer?

I’m using a SMSL SD-9 streamer and a Musician Pegasus DAC. The pair are awesome performers, and the streamer connects to the internet wired or wirelessly and provides access to Tidal and Qobuz. The Streamer supports Optiical, Coaxial, AES, Bluetooth, USB, I2S outputs to the DAC. The streamer is only 399, and the DAC only 1199 and they sound great together. I would get a separate DAC, as that will have the greatest influence on sound quality.

One of the first things I did when I got my Vault 2i was to plug it into my existing DAC.   It was an improvement,  but like we all often do. I upgraded the DAC.  I enjoyed it for a while then I spent a little over $3k on my current DAC.  It sounds phenomenal,  best sounding source component I have ever owned.   

I wasn't in the market really for a streamer, not at the moment.    However I did a trade plus cash deal that let me jump into a brand new Aurender N200 for only $750 out of pocket.     It's a great machine.   Sounds excellent with my DAC and driving my headphone DAC also with it's dual outputs.  Easy to add songs via PC , build quality is over the top... built like a tank.  I love it and it's good enough to pair with an even better DAC down the road 

Vault /  Node is a really good value when you factor user interface,  features , sound.   Hard to beat. 

I have a Holo May KTE DAC, very happy with that. So getting a good DAC is paramount. Then I find all streamers sound different. I’m using a LUMIN U2 Mini, which I like a lot. The app is good too. It sounds a lot better with a cleaned up Ethernet connection.