Need recommendations for a streamer

i think a reasonable assumption as to why the lumin u2 mini sounds superior (’more saturated sound, cleaner treble, etc. ’) than a node, as a streamer source, is because the lumin manages noise management/filtering much better, and allows for an upsampled digital feed so that the downstream dac can do its job better in putting the analog music together better...

the good sounding zenstream (with clean external power supply) does very well on the first aspect, don’t think it does the second

@tksteingraber  Out of curiosity, what did you have before the M5?

Why do you never read about Streamer A vs Streamer B ? Cause noboby

can hear a difference.

this is overly simplistic, and incorrect

different streamers sound different because they manage noise, clocking, power supply, and physical isolation differently - the sonic difference can be quite noticeable to quite subtle to insignificant... depending on the network, cabling, and of course the quality of system downstream to resolve those differences

Does a Mac Mini sound better than a Dell? Does a Dell sound better than a HP? They are all streamers so lots of possible comparisons. 

In general, yes a Mac Mini sounds better than Dell and HP. A good dedicated streamer sounds better than a Mac Mini. 

I've been enjoying a Roon Nucleus Plus server, USB into my PS Audio DirectStream DAC now for several years and highly recommend the Roon branded server.  Besides the sound quality, the server's Roon software is installed at the factory and I don't do much of anything from the time I did the basic setup (my Roon login credentials, setup the paths for my purchased music and where to store the Roon backups, etc.)  I have a USB connected external hard drive for my purchased music and the Roon backups and periodically shut down the Roon server and connect the hard drive to a Dell laptop to back it up to the cloud...for safe keeping.