Need recommendations for a streamer

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.

“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. ”

@seanheis1

You got this wrong bud! They all are consumer grade computers not designed and optimized for streaming audio. You get streaming functionality but they sound nothing like a dedicated streamer, not even remotely close.

You got this wrong bud! They all are consumer grade computers not designed and optimized for streaming audio. You get streaming functionality but they sound nothing like a dedicated streamer, not even remotely close.

@lalitk if you're hearing differences between streamers (digital out) where things aren't even remotely close, your ears are much better than mine ;-)