I don’t mean this to be rude - but this question has been asked many times in this forum and I’d suggest you will find it helpful to review the previous discussions. Or, you may find it particularly unhelpful as there are a number of posters who go to their respective corners to defend a viewpoint.
My $.02 is based on direct experience. I’ve had multiple streamers and they do sound different. BTW - so do digital cables and network switches and all sorts of other digital elements. This is anathema to the “it’s just 1s and 0s” crowd.
My experience in moving upstream was that the spatial information improved greatly such that my Node 2i sounded dimensionally “flat” in comparison. The tonality of the two units was the same, but the presentation was not.
How can this be if it’s just 1s and 0s? While I do not know with certainty, I can speculate.
The digital signal transmitted as 1s and 0s is done in analogue format via voltage changes. There are not 1s and 0s migrating down a cable but a current which must be interpreted as 1s and 0s by a converter. The current is a sine wave of sorts and the slope and speed of the wave are variables. Along with the primary carrier signal is the addition of noise which can distort the wave meaning that the interpretation of weather it’s a 1 or 0 might be altered ever so slightly.. Now imagine how vast and rapid is the information migrating and being “interpreted” across the system. Is it not reasonable to expect that there could be differences - even if extremely minor - coming across the signal path that when so multiplied might be received by a DAC and have some differences in sound?
Regardless of my viewpoint here, others with plenty of knowledge will disagree and claim what I’m hearing is imagined. So be it. May I suggest you try an in-home audition? I haven’t heard the Cambridge unit, but am well acquainted with the Node 2i which I still have in a kitchen system. But, it was moved there after I auditioned other units in my better system and the difference was enough for me to happily pull out my wallet.
Good luck in your search.
