New DAC or New Streamer?
This should be fun. After I pay to get my amp upgraded at VAC next month I plan to either upgrade my DAC or Streamer next. I should have enough for that by late spring/early summer. I'm retired so I save some each month until I have what I need. My system is in my user profile. But to keep this simple my current DAC is the Dinafrips Venus II I got a year ago. (I also have the Hermes DDC)
My streamer is the Cambridge CXN V2 via coax to the Hermes-> I2s -> DAC which is also 1 year old. I was just getting into streaming then and knew little about it. I have learned a lot this past year, a whole lot.
I think the bottle neck is leaning more toward the streamer. It seems the DAC is pretty good, I know there are much better DAC's out there but it holds it own I think. Maybe not? I cannot afford the likes of DCS, Lampizator, etc.
The next planned upgrades are a Terminator II DAC and Aurender N200 Streamer. Both are $5000-$6000. (Unless I go for the Terminator + DAC that is $7500 but I am not sure it is $2500 better than the Terminator II)
So, since both will get upgraded a year apart, which should I go for first? Which would provide the biggest upgrade?
Thanks. Happy holidays to all.
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!!
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@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. |
A clear example of a lower quality streamer mitigating the performance of a good quality DAC. This is why placing over emphasis on the DAC and relegating the streamer/source component to 2nd class status is a bad idea. A compelling case could be presented that in a good/high resolving audio system the source and DAC have equal sonic influence. Lower resolution systems will very likely obscure the impact. Charles |
“Curious if that bottleneck would become even more pronounced with a better DAC? ” @toro3 No doubt Innuos is good but another most important thing to consider when choosing a streamer is the control app you will be using to manage your music library and browsing music from cloud based streaming services. The Aurender’s conductor app is by far the best app in terms of simplicity, robustness and SQ. This is a critical part of the experience with streamers and usually the difference maker once you get past the hardware implementation. Yes, you pay a bit more upfront with Aurender but you’re getting a lot more in return. The outstanding build quality, excellent customer support and an app interface that’s easy to navigate without impacting the sound quality unlike ROON which we all know, not the best sounding software. |
Latik, I tried Innuos Sense briefly when first out and I had issues with functionality so I went back to Roon where my libraries reside. I have heard respected makers state the reason they do not incorporate Roon is the SQ degradation they found. What they do not say is how they must expose everything and change formats to accommodate Roon. And likely pay Roon something. So it is not an exciting prospect to some.
Recently I heard Linn folks say they worked out "an accomodation" with Roon that they could live with hence are now Roon Ready.
So there is a question of bias by makers and using SQ as their defense.
Is there any result of blind testing of Sense vs Roon ? Love to hear it.
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