Streaming Services

I think your plan of taking it slow is a good one. Use your Mac and see if you like it. I also second the opinion of those who emphasize the importance of the software to the experience. Mac and Apple Music, try a little Quboz, see what sticks. If the sound quality isn’t up to snuff for you, you now know there are other options. Based on your responses, I think you might be well served upgrading eventually to one of the so-called ‘all-in-ones’ or ‘single-box’ solutions (provided the software is up to snuff). The sound quality is excellent, and you can treat it simply as a source into which you can load and store CDs etc. Very easy to use. Satisfying. Innuous, Arrender, Auralic, and others have much to offer. From what I can gather, the USB interface has been well sorted by now (it used to ba a problem); although a single-box should offer additional options. 

Had Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon.

Kept Qobuz.

Just get a Blusound, the best "first" streamer. It will make a fool out of the Mac sound.

I’ll confess that when I started this thread I thought that a streamer or computer’s part in the streaming process was to simply relay a digital signal to a DAC and then the DAC would take that signal and work magic to output a quality analog sound.

I’ve gathered that a streamer’s part is more than that.

Question: What makes a streamer better than another? The ability to...

Thank you!

Question: What makes a streamer better than another? The ability to...

opions vary but there’s three basic functions of a streamer: 

1. the app that runs the streamer some are better than others. 
2. Bit perfect time aligned data. like in high-end audio, such as an amp, the quality of the power supply and the internal components can greatly impact the sound quality. This is more subtle than analog noise - organizing  data to a Dac relies on organizing the data with minimal noise and precise time aligned data. 

3. Digital output options. There’s many options for output. In your case USB into the Conrad dac is planet to get you started.

Your DAC is a great place to start. Looking at the specs it gives you a  24/96 data stream. The first part represents the amplitude or the gap between the highest and lowest values your Dac will send the amp. The second part represents the number of times per second that value can change. Like CD vs SACD there’s a debate about what you can hear vs not hear but the consensus appears to be CD quality 16/44 is not as good as higher quality rates 24/96 etc. 

here’s a good article about services and the basics of streaming. 

The 24 represents the number

Since I wrote this there’s three other features worth considering: 

4. buffering. Does the device buffer the songs locally before sending to the DAC. This is helpful in cases where the network is unreliable and can help keep the data aligned properly without gaps. 
5. local storage. Some streamers are starting to offer storage that lets you store music locally and stream direct from those devices. This is a great feature as you can reduce your dependence on streaming (assuming you want to buy or rip music to your streamer). 
6. Formats or Codecs. There’s still an on boing debate about MQA vs DSD vs FLAC etc. for now that largely irrevelant but the streamer and Dac combo need to support the codec etc. the debate largely revolves around getting the best quality in the smallest file that still has all the music that’s audible to your ears. With the DAC you have ignore it and just use Qobuz.

FWIW, BluSound, Auralic and Innous are great options. Ive decided to go Innous but it’s out of my budget right now so I’m experimenting with a low cost (and quite brilliant offering) a WiiM Mini for a total cost of $89 from Amazon. 

PS. One gotcha with the streaming services is that you don’t always get to use there app with the streamer you’re using.