A/B Comparison On A Pair Of Moderately Priced Streamers

Latest Node 130 works extremely well as long as you match it to a proper DAC

I think you pose a good question. It has not been addressed directly. I will try a bit better.
 

I looked at reviews of the Inuous. I have to say researching many streamers and owning a Aurlic Aries G2, and Aurender N100, N10 and W20SE, I would go with the Aurender. They are top notch sounding streamers from a company that only does streamers. I can’t recommend them enough. My Aurender W20SE and Audio Research Reference DAC CD9 sound equivalent to my Top notch $45K vinyl end. I think that shows what Aurender is capable of.

@scottya118 

The short answer is NO. This would be a lateral move at best, if that! IMO, N100 is better than Zen Mini. Having said that, to get the best out of N100; the quality of DAC, USB & PC cabling and rest of the system is just as important. 

At moderately priced level, there are so many options to put together a decent sounding digital streaming front end. The devil is in the details. What have you done to optimize your Ethernet i.e. the connection between your router and streamer?

I’m using a SMSL SD-9 streamer and a Musician Pegasus DAC. The pair are awesome performers, and the streamer connects to the internet wired or wirelessly and provides access to Tidal and Qobuz. The Streamer supports Optiical, Coaxial, AES, Bluetooth, USB, I2S outputs to the DAC. The streamer is only 399, and the DAC only 1199 and they sound great together. I would get a separate DAC, as that will have the greatest influence on sound quality.

One of the first things I did when I got my Vault 2i was to plug it into my existing DAC.   It was an improvement,  but like we all often do. I upgraded the DAC.  I enjoyed it for a while then I spent a little over $3k on my current DAC.  It sounds phenomenal,  best sounding source component I have ever owned.   

I wasn't in the market really for a streamer, not at the moment.    However I did a trade plus cash deal that let me jump into a brand new Aurender N200 for only $750 out of pocket.     It's a great machine.   Sounds excellent with my DAC and driving my headphone DAC also with it's dual outputs.  Easy to add songs via PC , build quality is over the top... built like a tank.  I love it and it's good enough to pair with an even better DAC down the road