Streaming vs Physical Media

@mdonda

As many above reported, streaming sound quality is now on par with CD playback and CD rips. Instead of investing into a CD player, I would explore ways to improve your streaming experience (if you haven’t already done so). One of the ways to improve streaming sound is inserted a noise filter like ‘Network Acoustics ENO’ between U1 mini and your router. The ENO is offered with no questions asked 30 days return policy. There are other ‘cheap’ thrills to isolate noise but I found none to be as good and effective as ENO.

I have gone 100% streaming but still likes to selectively buy high quality CD’s. Instead of maintaining separate CD and streaming playbacks, I invested into a solution that allows me to rip, store and playback of my modest 400+ yet precious CD collection. All of the above tasks are painlessly accomplished by Aurender ACS100. Again, there are cheap alternatives to rip, store, stream your CD collection and cloud based streaming but none are as elegant and superlative as ACS100.

@lalitk 

I wonder how the Aurender compares to the U1 Mini in streaming quality.  What improvements did you notice with the ENO in your system?  Thanks

One thing I can say is that streaming through WiFi as I’m doing now is vastly inferior to the same recordings played through my transport.  After speaking with some folks here they were pretty adamant that a good streaming setup outperforms using a transport, so needless to say a good streaming setup is in my future and I agree with upgrading your streaming equipment over using a transport.  When you start incorporating things like better routers, fiber optic connections, upgrading the streamer, etc. you should have as good and likely better performance through streaming with all its other wonderful benefits.   Best of luck. 

@mdonda

I can’t say how U1 mini compares to ACS100 because I have not compared the two in my system. Both Lumin and Aurender makes great sounding streamers. Are you going to prefer one over the other, hard to say. The only way to know is try Aurender in your system. If you re-read my post, I wasn’t trying to steer you away from Lumin but simply offering an alternative. The ACS100 makes sense for aforementioned reasons which are integral part of my holistic system approach and listening preferences.

If you like to hear Aurender, you’re welcome to stop by next time you’re in Houston.

As far ENO goes, I suggest you read up on following thread.

It simply depends.

I have a fairly modest digital front end, but actually it sounds pretty good. iFi Zen Stream > Denafrips Aries II via USB. An exterior 4TB hard drive connected directly to the iFi Stream via USB as a streaming server & an Audiolab 6000CDT CD transport > Denafrips Aries II via COAX digital for CD play.

Before I bought the Audiolab 6000CDT, I would say my streaming set-up was better than CD’s with my old Yamaha BluRay/CD player as my transport. Once I installed the Audiolab, my CD’s, once more, have bettered the streaming rig overall, but not by a tremendous amount. But it is better SQ overall.