New DAC or New Streamer?

It is true most off the shelf streamers use relatively less powerful processors for their lower inherent noise propagation, takes greater mitigation efforts to keep noise at a minimum with the higher power processors.

Roon dsp is pretty awful, HQPlayer plays at much higher level, still in process of determining a final analysis of it's ability to sound as natural as my particular Roon setup.  Thus far does excel on resolving powers, but does sound a bit artificial to me at least with PCM over and up sampling. HIgh DSD sampling rates are reportedly the way to go, will try that in time.

I'm also in camp of desiring analog/top flight vinyl sound quality with my digital. Just spent a tidy pile of money in order to bring my vinyl SQ up to the digital.

In the end I think we can all agree many paths to wonderful streaming SQ. If I were to go to off the shelf, Taiko, Wadax, Aurender W20SE, perhaps Antipodes K series or Innuous Statement would be at top of my list. With two machine setup, dedicated server/streamer many more would make the list. I'd only suggest one spend to top level of their financial abilities in streamer purchases if the intention is to make streaming their preferred source.

@grannyring I do know the Sense program is far less demanding and with each update sounds better and better. Innuos keeps adding features while improving sound quality

Bill, those are encouraging developments. Has the Sense sound quality upgrade been implemented within the past year? I wonder if there is further improvement with the new Pulse series network players.

Charles

“I don’t believe Roon is inherently inferior music player. I doubt Taiko would be using Roon in their Extreme streamers if they thought it had some inherent sonic liabilities.”

@sns

I do not know the exact reason why Taiko didn’t offer XDMS from the onset but it is quite obvious that Taiko designers felt the need to come up with their own UI/App. First TAS and later XDMS rolled out. When a member asked Emile on WBF,

Q. Are room correction convolution filters a possibility in XDMS?

Emile response was, “Not currently, and it’s low priority as XDMS is all about Sound Quality”.

As @grannyring pointed out, Innuos recognized the opportunity to further improve the sound quality and longevity of their enterprise by developing their own Sense App much to the tune of Aurender’s Conductor App. Again, the primary focus behind Sense App is SQ not some fancy interface or loads of features that don’t necessarily contribute towards optimized playback. 

Take this feedback as ROON not necessarily being inferior but a clear indication of superior integration, possible only through in-house development of proprietary software and hardware thus yielding to optimized playback performance and stellar customer support.

What is the basis for people asserting these other streamers they happen to fancy  are somehow better than the Cambridge? In what way other than perhaps cost? Anything concrete to back it up? Has anyone actually compared what they suggest with what the OP already has? What about feature comparisons? That can vary a lot with streamers. The Cambridge streamers tend to get top notch reviews in the press so that would suggest they are pretty good.

I don't doubt the proprietary players best with the streamers they're optimized to work with. Whether Roon is optimized for the wide variety of streamers its used on is the question. No doubt the Roon interface requires more processing than the stripped down proprietary players, running more processes means more opportunity for noise to be generated. This doesn't mean motherboard generated noise has to affect SQ, my custom build has linear power supply dedicated solely for the processor, another for the motherboard, and the PCIe cards for various interfaces totally isolated via  extensive on board filtering, clocking and external linear power supplies. Any noise generated by motherboard doesn't make it to the network port or usb renderer/port.

For individuals with streamers that don't have embedded proprietary music player software there are various music players available via subscription such as the Stylus which is available within Euphony OS or as endpoint only via Stylus EP. Others could then compare these proprietary players vs Roon. My own comparisons of these two is still ongoing, Euphony OS allows settings for Stylus I have yet to try.

Also, Roon likely has deepest pockets of all the music player software developers, means constant ongoing upgrades. One also should be mindful that streamer manufacturers using Roon are extremely likely to be working alongside Roon in order to optimize streamer/Roon integration, this would include attention to sound quality.

 The fact the proprietary players embedded in certain streamers preferred to Roon doesn't mean Roon SQ inherently inferior. Roon users also not obligated to use any of the filters/volume leveling/dsp, fact is I turn every one of these off, I hear sound degradation with some of these.

I observe individuals claiming great sound quality with virtually all music player software out there, until an objective comparison directly comparing these music players with a variety of streamers is undertaken I'll assume all can supply fine sound quality.