Streamer Recommendations

I recently purchased a Moon 280 D, the least expensive streamer in the Moon line at $4K. I compared it against my computer running Tidal into a Chord Qutest. I immeditately heard that the Moon was livlier, not nearly as dark as the computer Qutest combo.

I think the Qutest is a great DAC for the money. The dealer talked about the USB interface between the computer and the DAC being an inferior way of connecting a streamer to a DAC. Jitter, etc. Since the Moon ran Tidal or Qubuz on the streamer, the cable interface was not a problem, minimizing jitter.

The dealer then compared the Moon 280 D to a $9K Linn. I could not hear the difference and I have a decent ear. I probably could have heard some differences if I'd had the patience to sit around for a half hour or more listening carefully. It wasn't worth the extra $5K to me. 

I'm very happy with the Moon 280 D. It has an excellent interface called Mind 2 that runs on a phone or iPad. When I type in an artist or composer, a visual list (showing album covers) of all the albums for Mozart (or whomever) is dispalyed. Tap on the album and hit play, and that's about it. 

I don't know how long Moon is going to keep selling this relatively inexpensive streamer, but I highly recommend it.

Moon 280d is a nice DAC.  Enjoy

I had the Auralic Aries years ago. I preferred the Aries to the Lumin and aurender unit at the time. Lightning DS and the Lumin software was used for the Aries. The major drawback in using the Ari’s was the limitations of its outputs. I used usb to an external dac and with many gimmicks/tweaks to usb, it still sucked. Sold the Aries and the external dac and went with Roon and a dac that had Ethernet and i2s inputs. Went the Ethernet route for years until a streamer was built that used i2s so I switched to i2s now. 

In support of @cmrbkk 's note above re Magna Mano Ultra:  I've been using a MkII for about 4 years now and am very pleased with its reliability and sound quality, and Magna HiFi customer support is the best there is. 

If you wish to stream Pandora at max res this is one of very few options, which one of the members here clued me into.

Denafrips Arce. Great value and sound quality, though it does not have a proprietary software app or user interface. I use it with Roon and sometimes AirPlay, which provide the user interface.