New DAC or New Streamer?
This should be fun. After I pay to get my amp upgraded at VAC next month I plan to either upgrade my DAC or Streamer next. I should have enough for that by late spring/early summer. I'm retired so I save some each month until I have what I need. My system is in my user profile. But to keep this simple my current DAC is the Dinafrips Venus II I got a year ago. (I also have the Hermes DDC)
My streamer is the Cambridge CXN V2 via coax to the Hermes-> I2s -> DAC which is also 1 year old. I was just getting into streaming then and knew little about it. I have learned a lot this past year, a whole lot.
I think the bottle neck is leaning more toward the streamer. It seems the DAC is pretty good, I know there are much better DAC's out there but it holds it own I think. Maybe not? I cannot afford the likes of DCS, Lampizator, etc.
The next planned upgrades are a Terminator II DAC and Aurender N200 Streamer. Both are $5000-$6000. (Unless I go for the Terminator + DAC that is $7500 but I am not sure it is $2500 better than the Terminator II)
So, since both will get upgraded a year apart, which should I go for first? Which would provide the biggest upgrade?
Thanks. Happy holidays to all.
I used Roon for a year. After careful listening I felt the DSP functions were like using PhotoShop, it just added a layer of digital noise and made listening fatiguing, but fun to play with. I don't miss it. Innuos Sense is hands down better sounding than Roon. Sense fully integrates with Qobuz. I enjoy the HiFi Partners Playlists. Sense is free and keeps getting better.
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I don’t know who would arrange or conduct such an objective comparison undertaking. It appears that the individual brands have developed successful proprietary apps and good quality sound. People are very happy with their “Sense”,”Conductor “etc. It seems if listeners are very satisfied with the sound quality and user interface of their respective music servers/network players then mission has been accomplished. Roon no doubt is a very good comprehensive product but not everyone wants or needs it. There are multiple pathways to streaming contentment. Charles |
“Whether Roon is optimized for the wide variety of streamers its used on is the question.” IME, Nope. Its sound quality is all over the place with different servers/renders. The whole concept of keeping render + core separate (chassis) is deeply flawed…too many variables in-between that are potentially impacting its final rendering. After 18 months of fiddling with ROON on two different servers, to my ears and in my system; ROON is not in the same league as Conductor in terms of absolute sound quality. Does ROON sounds fine, ofcourse it does. But you don’t dump $30-$40K in your digital front end to hear something that just sounds FINE. The overwhelming feedback from Taiko, Pink Faun and Innuos owners is proof enough…no further objective comparison undertaking necessary or needed, nuff said! |
@lalitk Missed my point. I agree with you exactly, Roon sound quality IS all over the place with different servers/renderers. This is exactly the reason why sound quality of Roon in one setup CANNOT be extrapolated to ALL setups. Sure, there are plenty of individuals preferring other music players to Roon, so are you saying this negates all those who prefer Roon. I can only say the present sound quality I'm getting with Roon is absolute4ly revelatory, not a word I use lightly, in fact have not used once in thirty years of audiophile system building.
As for direct comparisons, I have the direct experience of the builder/assembler and subsequent owner of my custom streamer in comparing it to a number of off the shelf streamers which included the Aurender W20SE. They preferred this custom build running full Stylus to the Aurender running Conductor player. Both only sold the custom build after direct comparisons with Taiko Extreme which both purchased. So, how this relates to Roon is I'm preferring Roon with two computer setup to the setup they both preferred which is full Stylus running on the custom streamer. Now, custom build was not in same configuration as when they owned in that they were using HDPlex SMPS powered by Sean Jacobs and/or other top flight LPS, I'm using JCAT Optimo S ATX full lps, far superior to the HDPlex solution. Perhaps the superior noise elimination of the JCAT vs HDPLex is what makes the difference for my Roon preference, hard to say. Or perhaps its my particular setup with Sonore OpticalModule and OpticalRendu, which means LPS, cables used, again, hard to say.
Although I'm not done with experimenting with the Stylus or HQPlayer players, perhaps they'll prove to be superior with different configurations/settings, much to experiment with here. But the main point is I'm getting sensational sound quality with Roon at present, over a hundred hours in and sound quality remains revelatory. Perhaps the revelation will turn into ho hum, but until it does I have absolutely NO motivation to further experiment with players. And isn't the point to enjoy our systems or 'painting' as you put it, some theoretical argument or other people's negative experience with Roon isn't impacting my sound quality or my enjoyment of it. |
