Interesting philosophical discussion on merits of upsampling…. Despite the title of my thread I have enough experience in this hobby to know that any “conclusion” I think I’ve reached may later be proven totally wrong! It’s so easy to reach incorrect assumptions in HiFi. That’s why “the best” was in quotations!
@lalitk I am not married to Roon, and if I can test an Aurender at home I would. Love the Roon interface and radio but I will use whatever sounds best. I currently use Innuos Sense which does sound better than Roon with Squeeze - something that only recently became evident in my system.
A dream would be to test a MU1 against an Innuos Statement (not the Next-gen; too pricey), an Aurender N20, and an Antipodes K50 - but not likely.
Of that list the two that seem to me to be maybe a bit more unique and special vs the others are the MU1 (with its optional 4X upsampling setting and “window into the recording studio” effect that users describe - or “I listen with tears in my eyes” I know, over the top comment, commence eye rolling/gagging) and the K50 (in general people speak about it’s richness, musical “flow”, character vs other options, and even greater depth of soundstage vs the MU1 when using AES).
Nothing at all against Innuos (I really, really like their company and products) and I’m certain Aurender is great as well based on what many say about their products. But to me, they seem like my Audioquest Dragon power cords - they are absolutely fantastic and perform at an extremely high level, but they are devoid of any character or personality that makes them special or unique, beyond their high performance that checks all the boxes - and for many that’s what is desired from a streamer / server. From how people talk about their respective sound characteristics, the MU1 and K50 don’t seem like they are simply another top-tier streamer that checks all the boxes. Dunno, may just be my incorrect perception. My Diablo set the standard for how I want to feel about components in my system, beyond just sounding great (which always comes first).
As a new wrinkle, my system has now become revealing enough (with upgrades) that the advantage of music files over streaming is for the first time obviously apparent (as opposed to before when the difference was subtly apparent). So while I said previously that the new Innuos Pulsar (streamer only) was of interest, now I’m not so sure…. Sigh, my digital music approach will become a bit more complicated. This is even with the benefit of the Innuos PhoenixNET which is superb (I describe it to friends as a device that cleans the filthy internet).