Streaming 101

My Blue Sound Node 2 sounds almost, almost as good as my Marantz SA 8004 CD. What fun. 

I think you can access the DAC on the Esoteric X-01 D2.  It has a coax and an optical input on the back correct?

@joeyfed55

i also procrastinated several years with getting into streamed music until covid locked me in for several months back in early 2020... with over a thousand lp’s and another thousand cd’s it was hard to get off the dime... it has been a lot of fun climbing the learning curve, and now, 20 some months later, i stream from qobuz or tidal 90+% of the time

it is so much fun literally having the all the music out there at your fingertips, and sounding so beautiful so often

Thanks jbuhl, I'll have to see if I can access my DAC on the Esoteric, it's in the shop being repaired right now. The drawer wasn't working.

At first glance it appears that CD player has a Bur Brown 1704 DAC which was state of the art when it first came out , albeit many many audiophile moons ago. Regardless I can only image Esoteric went full tilt on the implementation and its a good place to start with a DAC.

The default answer for people starting out here is Bluesound Node. But if you want to explore a high end option take a look at the Bryston BDP-3. It will stream Tidal and Qobuz and go Coax out to your Esoteric. It also supports DSD files. There is a BDP-3 on audiogon now for $2.2K. New they are $3.6K I think.

The Lumin products also get mush love on this site.  You might include the Lumin U1 in your exploration.

Note, Do you have wired Ethernet to your rig or only WiFi?