Are "streamers" the new "transports"?

ianrmack

I'll preface by saying, I have a stellar system, a great collection of vinyl and CD's . I took a long time and investigation before jumping into the streamer "world".  I have had CD transports for years and still enjoy my current  PSA PWT transport. 

After ripping 70% of my CD's , I went to AXPONA this past year and noted that most of the rooms with streamers that I enjoyed were Aurender units . I even met the gentlemen from Aurender who gave me an excellent education on streaming and why I should buy Aurender ( of course ) .  Recently,  I bought a lightly used Aurender X100L .  Previously , I listened to my ripped CDs using J River through my laptop to my PSA DAC bridge which was pretty excellent, but the Aurender has taken everything to a whole new level of music appreciation. And I recently added Quobuz HR within the Aurender Conductor App and I may never leave the house again . 

If you're going to take the "jump" , I would recommend an Aurender product, followed by the Lumin U1 Mini forgoing the built in DACs and using your own .  

And in answer to your question , YES , a better streamer will provide you with better everything in my opinion IF you have a good system with which to appreciate what is being presented to you. 

Happy Listening ... 

Shad 

I’d add the Innuos Zen Mk.3 ($2600) to your list of candidates.  I like that it has a CD drive that let’s you rip your CDs right into its onboard memory — very easy and convenient.  Watch Darko’s video review of the unit where he compares to other streamers and also gives some explanations for why streamers make a difference.  I found it fairly interesting having not read much on this topic before.  FWIW. 

I heard a noticable improvement in SQ when I moved from a Wadia 3200 transport using coax to DAC,  to ripped CD's on a Windows laptop feeding the DAC over USB.

When you get to sourcing digital data from the Internet and sending it over USB to a DAC, it's incredibly, unbelievably cheap and reliable. We're talking $5.00-$10.00 components in a teeny weeny box, but you need a user interface, which could be a phone, tablet, or desktop.

Moving an analog signal from spinning vinyl to an amplifier is very difficult and always falls short of perfection.  Perfection in moving digital data from Internet to a DAC is not that hard with today's commodity technology (assuming adequate bandwidth).

Absolutely yes, with the same issues regarding the digital output plus the usability due to the app for the control of the player. Bluesound app is very good, Aurender app is good too but both are somewhat limited (not so for most of the users but I am quite nitpicky on this regard).