Point of higher priced streamer?

Good grief.  Expectation/confirmation bias goes both ways.  All devices were level matched.  I went in a skeptic.

“Do you hear the difference? If so what would be the possible factor?
It sounds like you hear the difference, then could you explain?”

OP, please outline your complete audio system before any of us give away our valuable time in explaining why and how streamers differs in SQ.

sangbro OP13 posts12-21-2020 10:11amWhy do you think I’ve not tried that?

I compare some but don’t hear the noticeable difference.

Then why worry? You tried it for yourself, did not hear any difference, case closed, no "higher priced streamer" for you. Simple. Again.

Although, from your post nine days ago here (https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/basic-dac-streamer-questions)

First of all, please be generous about old fool’s first step to the digital source.

I’m planning to switch to the digital source, and I’m looking for a product like Matrix Element X.
(It’s like Lumin X1 - DAC / STREAMER / Have its own Pre-Amp)

Do you actually have a DAC? How can you possibly know what is all there is to know on "high priced streamers" in nine short days?

My Lumin U1 sounds orders of magnitude better than my Node2 when streamed through the same DAC. This should be impossible according to many posters here. I had 60 days to return the Lumin U1 but of course I kept it. It also handily beat out an Auralic Aries G1 streamer...all using the same outputs. Look, I return gear that doesn’t make a difference in my system and keep the components that do. I don’t want to waste money and I have zero expectation bias. Many professional reviewers note the exact same thing. Line noise can absolutely get transferred through these devices if not designed correctly. It’s not all about 1’s and 0’s as people like to ignorantly reference all the time.

mgrif104

Expectation/confirmation bias goes both ways. All devices were level matched. I went in a skeptic.

I think that explains many audiophiles and that many of us are inherently skeptical. There was a time I found it difficult to believe that a cable could make a sonic difference. But my dealer at the time put a pair of Fultons in my hand and told me to try them at home. And so I became convinced.

I bought an Aurender N100H as a more elegant solution to a Raspberry Pi, which I was using with the DigiOne hat. It was easy to A/B the two by feeding the same file from each into my DAC - the outputs inherently equal in level - and the difference was more than enough to warrant the Aurender’s cost. Of course, that’s a subjective evaluation; for someone else the price difference might not be worth the expense.

I grew weary of the Aurender’s rocky software updates, intolerance of power outages and indifferent support, so I upgraded to a Bryston BDP-3. For a while I had both connected to the system and in A/B’ing the two I found subtle differences. Again, I realize it’s subjective for me to characterize the differences as "subtle." Someone else might consider them major differences, or perhaps hear no difference at all.

Technical explanations for these differences are really just a matter of curiosity to me.  Because of my own first-hand experiences, I tend to ignore those who insist that there can be no difference.