Under $3K streaming dac suggestions, Roon Ready?

Jacked on the contrary some people may prefer the Teac’s Akm vs the Lumin’s Wolfson, it is really a matter of taste we wouldn’t say the Teach isn’t good.

Personally we prefer the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge Plus over the D2 and we prefer the Lumin T2 over the Mytek so it all comes down to taste.

For the ESS guys who prefer a warmer sound the Lumin allows transcoding to DSD which generally makes the Dac a bit warmer.

So we would say Mytek for $3k and Lumin for $4.5k as the T2 is far better than the D2.

Dave and Troy

@jackd @audiotroy @kren0006

Thank you everyone for the suggestions so far. The T2 is out of my budget, unfortunately - so the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and Teac NT-505 are still the current front runners.  Both of those let you convert to DSD (DoP) as far as I can tell, which I do from time to time, via Roon DSP.

Both of those have a lot of versatility, which is nice, but I really only need a streaming input, and balanced outputs. The Lumin range offers just that, but the D2 is the only budget friendly option for me at this time.

I think the PS DSD will have a price drop in the used market soon, or whenever their new flagship DAC becomes available.

My current Auralic + Mytek Liberty is no slouch, so there’s no huge rush if waiting is my best option. However, I’ve said that many times before, and pulled the trigger on something new the next day!

Of the streamers  mentioned, the only one that is price competitive (though still $300 more) with the Teac is the LUMIN D2, but its Wolfson dac is nearly 10 yrs old (perhaps older, couldn’t find exactly when 8741 dac was released). 

The Mytek costs 50% more than the Teac, if cost savings are a consideration. 

Teac dual monoraul AKM 4497 and balanced outputs and upconvert to DSD. Pretty solid feature set

If some of your listening is MQA, I was told that in the Brooklyn, the MQA filters (whatever that is) has to be turned on/off manually. The filters do not change with whatever audio format is playing. I’m not certain what kind of sonic characteristics exist when playing non MQA content. Just something to think about. 

@aberyclark 

Thank you for the heads up.  I usually don't use filters, so that would probably not be an issue, but still good to know.

I'm also looking at the iFi Pro iDSD, but it's not Roon Ready(yet) to the best of my knowledge.  However it does have an ethernet digital input for streaming & switchable tube output, which is pretty cool.

There might be a loophole to get Roon to work with it, and I will check the Roon forums for more answers.