A/B Comparison On A Pair Of Moderately Priced Streamers

Would be best though if iFi would update their devices to work better on Wi-Fi in the first place, since that functionality is part of their marketing to consumers

@moonwatcher   Amen brother, I’m right there with ya.  And I’ll add their complete lack of customer service is downright unforgivable.  But, at $399 and the sound quality/$ I was willing to do a workaround rather than punting it off my roof in anger and disgust.  But if it gives me any trouble with the extender I’m hitting the roof immediately. 

I agree with the statement that quality of your DAC is far more important than your streamer. After all streamer just sends bits. In my opinion, buying an expensive streamer with internal DAC and using only that device is a mistake because external R2R DACs are far more superior. In my experience I bought relatively inexpensive Bluesound Node streamer and connected to Denafrips Terminator Plus DAC. I think despite price of that combo is very is very similar to Lumin or Aurender, sound is far superior to streamer DAC combo. 

I agree with the statement that the quality of your DAC is far more important than your streamer.  After all streamer just sends bits.
 

@drbay Due respect I couldn’t disagree more.  Streamers are instrumental to minimizing noise among other things — the arch enemy of good quality streaming.  You’ve got an awesome DAC, and if you think the Node is on the same plane as Lumin, Aurender, Innuos, Aries, etc. I think you’re sorely underestimating the role of a streamer.  I’d highly encourage you to try one of these better streamers in your system and see what you think, because IMHO you’re leaving a lot of performance on the table.  Just my $0.02 FWIW. 

This is so common an issue. One component is really critical until it at or above the rest of your system… then it is not. If you have a low quality DAC… then, upgrading makes a huge difference. Then, if you upgrade the streamer… OMG, what a difference. 
 

I do not want to take anything away from @soix. He is right. The streamer is critical, unless your DAC I’d the bottleneck.

I’ll just piggyback on @ghdprentice that in streaming, as with all or audio, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.  But, my experience with streaming this is on steroids, perhaps because the signals are so minuscule and thus susceptible to intubations from noise, timing issues, etc. that it’s amplified 10-fold down the line.  Anyone who’s heard an Aurender N20 has been overwhelmed by its sonic benefits, so for you to say a Node is adequate with your awesome DAC, no — just no.  Again, try a better streamer that is much more befitting your DAC.