Combination streamer and music server…without DAC

Get the Aurender. I have the W20SE, there is no better streamer on earth. Highly recommend English Electric 8 switch network switch with Audiowise DC power filter on it, you’lll be in streamer heaven with Qobuz.

-Brandon

Not much discussion here of a computer plus Audirvāna or other software, with an outboard dac. This is very flexible and I have found the DAC makes a big difference. Chord Qutest has galvanic isolation on the usb. This sounds markedly better than an RPi with various hats, which I also tried.

I recently upgraded to a Aurender N150, I'd go with them, thing is built beautifully, and sound is phenomenal, dead quiet and I put 500 CDs on the internal SSD in .wav and they sound better than ever.

I used to have a Sonos Connect mod wright and all my music playing from a NAS through the modded Sonos and it sounded awesome, the Aurender playing them directly from the internal SSD blows the old setup away, I do also do a little streaming on Qobuz, but the internal SSD files sound the best, the HiRes stuff on Qobuz is pretty good though.

My vote is Aurender, the only thing I wish they did was include a IR remote, just for play/pause and skip tracks, I dont love having to do everything while getting a tan from a ipad screen during a listening session.

Brandon:  I’m newly retired and the Aurender W20SE would account for 1/2 annual of my combined Pension and SS!  I do want to thank everyone for their suggestions.  A lot to mull over..

I highly recommend the bluos node. You can upgrade the power supply and add fiber making a hard to beat budget streamer. Good luck in your search. Remember you can spend a lot of money with little return, be careful!