Streamer opinion.. Pease comment on validity.

Idol ramblings of a recent purchaser of his first streamer
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Following the lead of an A’gon poster I purchased a Node 2i from Brite Audio who sells the Node 2i for $500, less 10% for a first time customer, so $450, all in including shipping. It did take about 3 weeks to receive it, drop shipped directly from Bluesound.

I received the unit in December and like the sound much better running it into a modded Musetex Meitner DAC. The Museatex Meitner presents the music with a very pleasing sound stage, tonality and depth. Taking my DAC out the sound does seem flatter. Without having actual experience, I wonder if comparing different streamers with the same DAC will not necessarily show which is the better sounding streamer, only the streamer that has the best synergy with that particular DAC.

But at last, what I want to say is that pleasure of the world of music that this (or any streamer with such a great OS) opens up overshadows any possible deficiency in sound quality. Its like having the music equivalent of the Library of Congress at your fingertips. I haven’t even needed to experiment around, I put on the 60’s and 70’s music station and haven’t felt the need to tune to another station. It’s like whoever selects the programming is reading my mind. I will note that where I live in Vermont there is limited FM programming available, even with my DXing tuner.

The 'audiophile' stuff is handled by the DAC. If the DAC can't clean up noise and jitter on the digital inputs, it's poorly engineered; look elsewhere."

The thing about DAC's is that they have limitations. I mean, even the best DAC on earth is going to have a problem if you have transmission delays lasting half a second. Some of this could be network related, some could be the OS and how "real time" the response to the USB request is, so I wouldn't put this all on the DAC per se.

I will say that modern DACs handle this much better, in the last 15 years or so, and that to me is the biggest reason to upgrade your DAC.

Streamers are unstable. Companies making them may come and go, the services they talk to (Tidal, Quboz, Spotify, etc.) may come and go and some one has to keep up. USB DACs require drivers, and the phone/tablet apps need to stay up to date.

My point to all of this is, a good streamer is worthwhile, but it's also not going to live very long. Your DAC and other electronics will be working long after the streamer has turned into a brick because of the latest iOS/Android upgrade.

Erik: it’s possible - perhaps even likely - that you’re correct that the streamer technology will cause my existing units to become obsolete. However, I view it differently.  I’m enjoying the functionality and stability that my streamers currently provide. They’re all more convenient, have better apps, and sound better than the modded Mac mini I was using for that function. Further, I had to update the Mac OS far more often than I do my streamers.  So, purchasing a streamer has also lessened my stress. I don’t have to update something every time I turn it on.

The way i see it - the job of the streamer (and/or server) is two fold: 1) convenience for accessing music, and 2) improve the sound quality by providing a lower jitter and less noisy signal to the DAC.  

In my experience, the streamers I have do both those jobs well.  When new technology greatly eclipses what I have, I’ll adopt. But, I’m not going to avoid using what is currently available and which works very well because something better may be available in a few years.  The improvement in sound quality today is significant over PC/Mac based solutions. So is the convenience.  
My $.02

So it seems pretty clear now that there are sound difference in the absence of a dac in a streamer.

What causes those difference? Is it mainly the circuitry, the quality of the components or the software?

All cabling etc being equal of course

@mgrif104

I never said that streamers have no value. In fact, it is precisely because they integrate our music library, online services with our phones and tablets that they have value.

I just worry about their value proposition.  A $2K streamer makes a lot more sense to me than a $20K streamer. :)

Best,

E