Do I need a streamer?

@whitestix

Feel free to contact me here using private messaging to discuss if you like. I’ve been streaming various ways for many years to my pretty nice hifi setup for many years and have a good bit of experience to draw on there.

Try this experiment. Take an am radio and tune it to a moderately clear  station. Then move it closer to and further away from computer and see if that affects reception to get a handle on how much noise your computer creates or not. FM station may work also but fm is not as susceptible to RF noise that any digital device can create . Then maybe try same with a streamer and compare.

Streamers come with many terabytes of memory down to no memory (usually with empty solid state storage slots). Most have USB ports to connect USB drives and they can access Network Accessible Storage though the network.

The high end audio industry is going through a major transition from owning physical media -> streaming personal files -> using streaming service. The final stage is mature. I have a very good analog system and Qobuz streaming service sounds better on high resolution albums of the same as Red Book CDs on the same resolution.

If you get your streaming up the an appropriate level you will have little use for your ripped files. I keep some on my streamer… just in case of a network outage… but only use one about once a year. This is common… once you achieve equal or better sound quality you abandon storage.

I would recommend getting the best streamer you can afford… Aurender… although there are a number of good brands. Aurender only makes streamers and their flagship is the standard for audio shows it sounds so good.My rule of thumb is that (your carefully chosen) components should all be roughly the same cost (TT, DAC, preamp, amp… etc.). For me, my streamer is about 20% more… well worth the premium… it is a source component, like a turntable. Start out with poor sound and amplification will not make it sound better.

@whitestix

Yes, your Mac is a ’streamer’. That’s all streamers are - computers. As long as the bits are getting to your DAC without error, then you have a fully functioning setup. There’s no need to buy another box.

I currently use a Mac mini as a streamer for a living room system and a Raspberry Pi 4 for the downstairs stereo. The Mac holds all my music in a shared folder. The RPi can access the shared folder and streams my music library over wi-fi - everything from ripped CD’s to hi-res 24/192 downloads to archived SACDs without a hitch.

@whitestix I used Mac Mini as a streamer for quiet some time before upgrading to Auralic Aries G1 and Lumin U1 Mini. I’ve done several comparisons of streamers to Mac Mini and the Mac lost every time whether it streamed Qobuz or played files from the attached HDD. The difference was immediately audible. 
The Mac Mini is now in a totally different part of the house, away from my audio components and is being used strictly as a Roon core.

There are means to get nice sound out of computers such as mac mini but requires much diy effort. I used three different iteration of mini's over the years, last one provided very nice sound quality, no complaints, could have lived with that one for a good many years.   

I agree that general service computer does not belong in high end streaming setup, self generated noise, lousy rendering, nothing you do post  computer will get back what's been lost in the noisy general service computer used as streamer. Stock mac mini is one thing, highly modified mini is quite another.

As good as that final mini was, my present streaming setup betters that by quite a wide margin.

My greatest issue with vast majority of off the shelf streamers is lack of processing power, forget about running HQPlayer or any intensive DSP, I bet many would surprised by what DSP can offer. Versatility of present setup allows great manipulation of digital bits, like having a number of different streamers and dacs in one system. I'd suggest custom build streamer is valid route for top flight streaming if one is up to the task.