New DAC or New Streamer?

I agree with Charlesdad….  If you stream a lot , the Streamer is very important as it is akin to a CD transport.   Can you imagine pairing a $5000 DAC with a Coby DVD player as your transport?   It will work but you just inserted a major bottle neck into the digital chain.  
 

I also have a Bluesound Vault 2i and it’s been great.  It has so many things going for it , including convenience 

When I turn my TV on the Vault senses this , puts its input to Video and I now have. Control of the volume for TV and movies 

Tons of free content.   On and on.  
 

But when I really want quality over convenience I power up my Aurender and Stream Qobuz or Tidal     
 

Those streams sound good on the Vault but the Aurender is noticeably better in every metric. 

@oddiofyl 

Those streams sound good on the Vault but the Aurender is noticeably better in every metric

l know that there are many happy owners of the Blue Sound streamer components.  I could begin here but reading comments like yours,sns, Lalit and other experienced streamers I may as well go a step (Or two) beyond. One thing I’ve vowed to do is avoid multiple boxes and cables.😊

Charles

I have a Cambridge Evo 150 all-in-one. This thing is like a Swiss army knife. Many ways to stream and DAC integrated in. Do they all sound exactly the same? No. Most sound very close though. Chromecast can be a straggler sometimes. Nature of the source material is the biggest variable by far. However I hear more in most recordings of decent or better quality than ever before.

I think for many who want to simply cut to the chase for top notch sound streaming an integrated device like this is the ticket.   This is a future-fi trend and I expect many other new and similar devices to be coming the consumers way in the near future.  

@lalitk I am wondering what filtering devices you recommend. 
 

I would love to hear your thoughts also @sns ​​​​​@charles1dad .

Well said! I will go one step further…without network optimization, you’re not hearing full potential of your streamer or server. It is so vital to clean up the Ethernet signal from your modem or router before it enters your streamer/server. Even if your streamer/ server is galvanically isolated or use superior noise rejection circuitry, using some kind of noise filtering device is proven to be helpful in cleaning up the grunge. The degree of improvement from noise filtering devices may vary in each setup but they are generally effective. Please don’t go gadget crazy…IME, one or two high quality noise filtering devices are more than adequate, atleast that’s been true in my system.

It’s not the topic of this thread but I thought it may be useful to relay that I have found my Innuos gear to be so, so sensitive to vibration control. I have a ZENith Mk 3, a PhoenixUSB, and a PhoenixNET. While my 3 Innuos boxes have elaborate dampening footers, simply resting any one of my three Innuos boxes on top of Herbie’s Tenderfeet (Tall version in order to clear the stock feet), which are quite economical as far as HiFi stuff goes, really transforms the sound and not in a subtle way. I was really not expecting that type of difference. The difference is so large that in a different system with a different rack I could see some maybe not liking the change. But in my system the Tenderfeet added a large scope and scale to the sound - every frequency is presented much larger, with a more expansive soundstage. Really stunned how you can hear this just adding to one Innuos component in isolation. The best I can describe it is that there is more of a sense of drama, with improved dynamics too.  I only have experience with Herbie’s vibration control, but here is the thing you can do with Tenderfeet that you can’t do with other products intended to replace stock feet: you can experiment with placement of the Tenderfeet that the component is resting on. Which brings me to the next point - it actually matters! For example I like the smoother sound of one Tenderfoot at the front of my PhoenixUSB and two at the rear, rather than the other way around which producers sharper and overly precise male vocals. Even slightly better is using 4 Tenderfeet under the PhoenixUSB even though the PhoenixUSB has only 3 stock feet.

It’s not all good with Herbie’s though. Tenderfeet under my amp ruined my sound for months, and I just recently realized the Tenderfeet were to blame. So as everyone says, you may get different results in your system. But I thought it would be worth mentioning how incredibly sensitive the Innuos gear is to vibration control. You really have a massively flexible tool to adjust the sound presentation to your liking with Herbie’s + Innuos.