Streamers and software

Briefly, here is my system 

Streamer, Topping d90, khozmo passive pre, pass xa25, crites type B(think Cornwall)

I spoke with TMR.  I want to avoid frustrating software in the streamer.

We settled on a innuous Zen Mk 3 or an Aurender A100. He recommended the zen with a little softer sound.

Just thought I would update the thread.  Both have built in LPS. The zen has dual LPS and I think the Innous LPS is very good.  The zen is $2000, aurender $1300.  

And the Innous needs a USB which I am not familiar with.  He offered a Nordost for $200.  Any recommendations, I am not an expensive cable guy.  Thank you!

To preface, this is just my opinion, but I owned an Aurender N10 for awhile and found the software (v4 I think) quite frustrating. The sound was good. I switched to Innuos and found it much more to my liking. The sound was good as well. 
 

As for cables, the used Innuos I bought came with a Transparent USB cable which I used for awhile. I replaced it with a WireWorld Platinum 7 USB cable, a surprising and very significant upgrade. Note that with USB, results can be very DAC dependent, as it offloads clocking to the DAC rather than handling it in the streamer. 

Well, I have an Innuous Zen Mark 3 coming with the Nordost Purple flare USB cable. I read in another thread right after I purchased the Zen that the DAC USB connector must be galvanically isolated or it causes problems i.e noise. The Topping has an XMOS 208 connector and board. I think it is OK but haven’t found out for sure. The newer XMOS has more processing power and I don’t know what else. There is a part I can buy to fix the isolation. Now if I could just put a DAC right behind it, my system would shine. We will talk about that later.🙂

@zlone you went from a copper cable to a silver cable so forgive me for saying it is a no-brainer that it would sound better. I know people get tired of me saying it but digital cables need silver. the current is extremely low so most of the current is on the surface so digital plated is generally all you need. you went to solid silver and crushed it.

I think people have heard negative things about silver analog cables for so long that they don’t always realize that digital is different. the data is so dense that every little bit helps and silver conductivity is 7% higher than copper.

BTW, I tried some very nice silver plated speaker cables later and was shocked ho bad they sounded. I won’t elaborate.

I see people focusing in the brand. Pick the design first and then look at brands. There is often very little difference between quality brands. the difference is in the design. I don’t know why some high end cable manufacturers still make copper digital cables.

Jerry

@carlsbad2 you went from a copper cable to a digital cable

Assuming you meant 'silver' not 'digital'. Yes, I fully agree that pure silver is excellent for digital for all of the reasons you mention. I want to upgrade my ethernet cable to something similar from WireWorld, but they are quite spendy. 

I am also a fan of the OCC metals, my experience is that it makes a difference.

I also agree that silver plated copper is not the best option for audio applications and I generally avoid it. I think this is where silver gets a bad name. I think that solid silver is probably okay and I am currently trying out some https://silversolids.com/ interconnects, but I am still in the break-in period so cannot comment just yet.