Streamers/DACs

Hey @brewerslaw - Not sure if you saw my post here about the A15 and N200, but you might find it to be useful:

I also responded to your last PM now on how you could use your WAP if you have one in your listening room.

I have used Cary DACs in the past and they are "okay". Not the end in resolution. I worry about suggesting the DMS-700 to anyone regardless of whether the sound quality is good because Cary does not specialize in digital source playback ecosystems, which will result in a less mature/satisfactory user experience.

I am now a very dedicated Aurender fan. I bought my first streamer Aurlic Aries G2 because it had built in wifi and Aurender didn’t. Mistake on my part. My dealer told me to just buy an wall wart wifi extender and plug it in next to the streamer… wow, that was easy. I found my first Aurender way better than the others I owned or auditioned. My Aurender produces vinyl quality sound. You can see my systems. I know of a number of $150K systems running off wall wart Wi-Fi’s with world class sound. 
 

I have a EtherRegen. I put it in on my main system. I recently took it out. I could detect no difference. I have swapped it in and out… also upgrading the Ethernet from wifi extender to the EtherRen. This actually caused a slight hardening of the treble. I though maybe the newly installed Ethernet cable needed additional breaking… but it was not going away. I finally decided a Cardas Ethernet cable would probably fix it. Then I realized with the $200 cable already on there, adding a $350 cable… I would be paying as much on cables just to stop the EtherRegen from interfering with the sound. That just seems wrong. So I just took it out of the loop.

I don’t want anyone to think that I am suggesting EtherRegen will not help them. I believe the value of fiddling with your network is more valuable the lower the quality of your streamer. I have a flagship Aurender W20SE… and I believe it is very nearly completely isolating it from the network. When I have some time, I’ll put the EtherRegen in my headphone system with my Aurender N100 and hear what it does. 

we are apersona dealer and we sell servers the 432Evos we srll an amazing dac streamer from avik the S180

as per wifi vs ethernet a good wifi to ethernet bridge is your solution

knowing the personas you should look at a very warm sounding dac aor adding a tube preamp most dacs with volume control will not sound as good as a dedicated preamp

the naim nd5 xs is an excellent dac and streamer the naim app is excellent

also the atoll st 200 is really musical dac preamp and streamer 

th bricasti m3is an amazing dac and has a decent volume control

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect NJ

persona naim atoll bricasti dealers

@ghdprentice Seems the EtherRegen is hit or miss depending on how the rest of someone's internet is functioning. I too could hear very little difference with it on its own and almost returned it until a friend suggested I try a Farad Super 3 LPS on it. I did so with a good aftermarket cabling, and that smoothed a lot out while bringing out more detail. It was an unconventional route as I paid more for the LPS and cabling than I did for the EtherRegen itself. Unfortunately I did something stupid and fried the LPS, so I took the opportunity to upgrade to the Synergistic Research Ethernet Switch UEF and called it a day. These solutions cost way more than they should but now that they are in place I am happy to have them. In my system, even while using wifi via a Netgear Orbi into the switch, streaming and local file playback are nearly indistinguishable, which was not the case before.

@blisshifi

My experience with EtherREGEN was a mix bag as well. It did more harm than good in my system and I end up moving away from it. When it first came out, there weren’t many options to tweak Ethernet so many reported positive feedback. IME, the impact of FILTERS and Switches greatly varies depending on what’s ahead of these devices. If you were using a high quality streamer, their impact may not be profound as opposed to someone using a Nucleus or iFI Zen.

I keep an open mind when it comes to Ethernet tweaks and believe their is no substitute for trying them in your system to truly understand their impact. Like you, I got done tweaking my Ethernet chain when I switched to Telegartner M12 Gold Switch w/JCAT LPS. Further, my switch and router are grounded with a pair of Entreq Macro Ground Boxes, the additions of grounding boxes was like cherry on top :-)