Streaming vs Physical Media

@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.

Lots of good posts.

So much of streaming is listener dependent. What I like, you might find awful.

@mdonda ,

A CD will play only Redbook(44.1khz), streaming might offer the same track at higher resolutions. And, much of the playback quality will be due to your DAC.

Border Patrol is one of the highly rated DAC's, so you should be good to go.

If you do want to compare, I would suggest finding a Rega Apollo CD transport. It is not very expensive, and does a very good job, and you can insert your DAC, if you wish.

bob