A/B Comparison On A Pair Of Moderately Priced Streamers

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 

Vault /  Node is a really good value when you factor user interface,  features , sound.   Hard to beat. 

I have a Holo May KTE DAC, very happy with that. So getting a good DAC is paramount. Then I find all streamers sound different. I’m using a LUMIN U2 Mini, which I like a lot. The app is good too. It sounds a lot better with a cleaned up Ethernet connection.

"... my experience is upgrading a streamer is at least as impactful as upgrading a DAC."

So ... what you’re saying is that, given the same (uncompressed) source file, different streamers send different bits and bytes to the DAC? I can’t believe that to be the case.

One might be able to hear the dfference between compression rates, but even that is hard ... find out if you have a 100% score below.

My buddy works for a local dealer.  His advice to me was that the Auralic was a better sounding unit.  That being said, the sound comes mainly from the DAC.  The DACs mentioned here IMO just standard mid-level DACs.

Happy Listening.