New DAC or New Streamer?

@kota1

The OP is aiming at his end game digital front end. Your suggestions so far suggests an entry level streamer options which is clearly opposite OP’s goal.

+1, @charles1dad  “A mediocre source will impede a good DAC”. 

Trying to put myself in you shoes: if I had said that I thought my streamer was the bottleneck, and I had purchased a DAC prior to the streamer - I would probably be wondering about how much of a bottleneck my Cambridge is while listening to my new Terminator. Curious if that bottleneck would become even more pronounced with a better DAC? 

@fthompson251 , thanks, I was simply illustrating a point that the backend is a better value IMO than the front end. Streaming is what it is, convenient, but on a high resolution system it generally won’t deliver what you can get from ripped files. I would rather spend the majority of my budget on the dac. In my system I use my Onkyo DP-X1 DAP via USB to stream. It can convert ripped files to DSD/DOP then pass it off to the Sony where it "remasters" it in DSD. When you get used to DSD quality from ripped files the streamed versions lose a step if you know what I mean.

This is from TAS:

Sony’s new “DSD Remastering Engine,” which according to Sony “combines a high-performance DSP (digital signal processing) and FPGA (field-programmable gate array) to convert any signal (my emphasis) into DSD128 signals. It was designed based on the know-how garnered from Sony’s 8-times oversampling and Extended SBM (Super Bit Mapping) technology for professional recorders.” Yes, you read that right: the remastering engine can convert any and all PCM music files into DSD128 format, regardless of their original sample-or bit-rate.

@toro3 , on a highly resolving system the "bottleneck" starts with the network. Any noise on the network is passed downstream to the streamer and the DAC.

Recently I attended a Linn presentation of their newest DAC/Streamer

$45K? not sure.  As they outlined all the new improvements I asked

which part improves the SQ most? Immediate reply-the DAC.

For your situation Aurender is good but pricey. The Innuos

Zen 3 I have Streams/Rips and stores. I paid $2,200 new and I think

they up about $1k today. Love the thing.

You should still be about $2k ahead if you go with Innuos

and that gets your new Terminator as well.

Yeah you owe me now fella!!

@fthompson251 I am an Aurender dealer, but audiophile first, so take this with a grain of salt. I used to own a Modwright-modded CXN V2, the one with a tube stage, in a second system. While the upgraded DAC section was quite good, the streamer was quite lackluster. I once put it into my primary system a few years back, where I had a NAD M50.2 dedicated server/streamer going into the the CXN. The NAD did a good job of cleaning up the sound. I've since become an Aurender dealer and moved away from the NAD. In September, I had a customer come by with his Modwright CXN V2, and he asked me to connect an Aurender N200 into it. I did so, and the difference was outstanding - much higher than the older M50.2 I had hooked up a year or so prior. It only took about 10-20 seconds of listening for the customer to tell me he was sold on the N200.

I was in a similar dilemma as you when I had the NAD M50.2 hooked up to a PS Audio DirectStream DAC. Both were good components, but I was missing something, so I went on a DAC hunt. I moved through a number of DACs, including a Lampizator Baltic 3 with over $1K of tubes, but ended up returning it. When I decided down the other path and added an Aurender to the chain, it made a much bigger difference than continuing to upgrade my DAC.

The CXN is absolutely the weak link of the two. Feel free to contact me directly if you'd like to talk about the N200 or any other products Aurender has to offer.