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Music Streamer Quality

This may be a dumb question but does the quality of a music streamer ultimately affect the sound? So here's some detail. I currently have a Sonos music streamer fed into a Simaudio Moon 300D dac. In the interest of having higher quality sound I could upgrade the dac or I could buy a dac with streaming capability such as the Simaudio 280D. I'm looking at a R2R ladder dac but would have the same Sonos feeding it. Does that make more sense than something like the Moon device? I appreciate an comments.
128x128falconquest
moryoga's avatar
moryoga
103 posts
 
Another vote for Bluesound Node 2. If you run that into a Schiit Gungnir multibit dac, you're talking seriously good sound, a highly functional and a really well designed music server for a bit over 2k. If funds allow, I think it's a superlative bargain. Good luck. 
davem0
4 posts
 
+1 for Auralic Aries mini. It's super flexible and the iPhone Directstream app is quite elegant. Plus, their customer service (if you ever need it) is outstanding. 
camb
164 posts
 
I have a Moon 780D and I get better sound using the internal MiND streamer vs using my Meridian Sooloos MS600 to feed it via an MIT Oracle digital coax.  Not sure if this is due to a shorter signal path or just differences in the sonics of the streaming devices. 
kendrick2
41 posts
 
Falconquest - There is no reason to upgrade your dac at this time... the Sonos is the weaker part of your system.  If you want to keep the Sonos, an external re-clocker or Wyred4Sound modification will make a big difference, especially if used with a good power cord.  I owned the unmodified and W4S modded Sonos with Furutech FP-320ag power cord that has the C8 connector, and this source sounded much better than the standard Sonos.  However, you can improved the sound quality even further  by moving to a small streaming source like the MicroRendu from Sonore or the SMS-200 from SOTM audio.  
 
I've owned the MicroRendu since fall 2016 and can safely say it is a major upgrade over the modified Sonos.  If the other parts of your system are reasonably good quality, you will hear music like never before.   Plus, you can use Roon to stream from Tidal, which is opens doors to other musical worlds.   BTW, I've used several dacs with the W4S Sonos in the past 3 years (Rega, Naim, PS Audio DS Junior, and Resonessence Mirus) but never really found them to transform my system like the MicroRendu with a good linear power supply (Uptone Audio LPS-1.  So does the streaming source make a difference... absolutely yes!   
falconquest's avatar
falconquest OP
1,108 posts
 
Thank you kendrick,
I had pretty much decided on the W4S Sonos upgrade until your comments so I will do some more research. I do use a ifi SPDIF iPurifier between the Sonos and the dac but have not switched out the power cord. The entire front end of my system is powered through a BPT balanced power unit.

I am still researching dacs and have somewhat narrowed it down to the Holo Audio level 3 Spring dac, the Soekris dac 1541 or the Denafrips Ares. The R2R design intrigues me.
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