Streamed music sounds awful in my system and I don't know why ....

@sns Thank You for the suggestion. I am sure it would sound very nice. But I am happy with my current setup. I use Foobar2000 that is highly configured to stream everything (including Radio Paradise and Folk Alley) in DSD. Will keep this info in my back pocket for future.

"Excellent sounding streaming can be achieved with your PC in the right circumstances. If using USB, make sure your DAC has a good USB implementation and has Galvanic isolation. I’m streaming through Roon and Tidal/Qobuz and upsampling PCM as High as 1024X DSD with my Audio Holo May KTE DAC and HQPlayer. Even without using upsampling, it sounds excellent. You don’t necessarily need a dedicated streamer to achieve excellent streaming results! People who are telling you the PC is bad just haven't hear a well setup PC that had good results."

I can vouch for this exact setup. There is a bit of a learning curve with HQPlayer but no DAC can match the quality of upsampling/filtering, there is simply not enough headroom for the processing.

Many if not most off the shelf streamers cannot run HQPlayer dsp, not enough processing power. Probably my single greatest issue with off the shelf is this lacking. Most have chosen low power processors, their means to achieving low noise platform. With the right diy setup you can have both high speed processing and low noise. Takes more engineering prowess, but greater speed and using less of a processor's capabilities may result in superior performance.

DIY may also result in a far more adaptable streamer, I can choose between optimal usb, aes/ebu, coax, I2S, direct ethernet out with my atx board streamer. With Euphony OS can choose between various music player software, all Roon, Roon core with embedded HQPLayer, Roon with Stylus EP (Eurphony's music player), all HQPlayer, all Stylus (core and endpoint). Many other proprietary optimizations available via Euphony OS, for instance direct play from RAM.

Too much bad information.  A specialty pc can become part of a hi end playback system.  WMP has no place...try JRiver MC or even WinAmp.  

Unfortunately, no truly fine internal pc DACs exist.  The last true audiophile PCI sound card was the M-Audio 2496. The downside was that no drivers were ever provided past W7.  I guess that hasn't stopped some of us from enjoying these amazing machines.

Despite some short comings, simple desktops or even NUC's can provide a foundation for streaming & NAS solutions of hi caliber and immense satisfaction.

Get rid of the PC. Decouple the Eth net from the system.

Small Green Computer

Or