Recommended streamers/servers?

For your budget, I would get the auralic altair g2.1.

I am considering it myself.

audionoobie

I had a Lumin T2 (now selling) and went all in for an Lumin X1 (used ones are now out there). I started with USB out of a laptop. The SQ difference was considerable when the T2 was in! The jump from the T2 to the X1 is not as profoundly noticeable but does garner a bit more.

From what I have heard the Lumin T2, Brooklyn Bridge and PS Audio (all of them with DAC’s) are terrific. So many other things come into play ...room ...amp.. speakers... connects.. power and power supplies... life partner, etc. into the SQ of your systems.

I have experienced better SQ with mid and upper all in one streamer solutions. I have never heard any 15K-30K ones.

Most importantly I also have a lava lamp on top of my system. Ambience matters too.

All Streamers do the same damn thing. What’s key is the DAC that the Streamer is connected to. Your Internet Service Provider and the downlink speed is more critical. Don’t get me started on the Fibre Optic Crowd (unless you have 100’s of feet to run between you Streamer and you ISP’s modem).

Do not understand the Fibre Optic comment.

Here is something I asked the other day on another site.

If someone is using Fibre Optic cable from the network switch (Ubiquiti) to a Lumin X1 DAC (or a Sonore OpticalRendu and a USB DAC). Assuming that the computer running ROON Core is more than powerful enough but not optimized for audiophile silence. Does sound quality improve if one is running a customized music server, such as this CAPS 20 or Aurrentder et al, If it does improve what is the reason for that?

My understanding of the problems with network streaming was the analog noise seeping into the network and then getting into the DAC. This supposedly cannot happen when using Fibre Optic cable. What am I missing with regards to the need for a audiophile grade music server even when using Fibre?

When talking streaming, I think Fibre needs to be front and center of the discussion. Lumin now has 2 Fibre DACs and LINN has their $40K DAC with Fibre support. I am waiting on this tech to go into $1500 DACs, for example the $900 Matrix Mini-i Pro 3 DAC has RJ45 streaming input. Put a Fibre input in there and then a lot of fun will happen in the streaming space.