streaming and audiophile stereo

@erik_squires  lots of scams in the industry, MQA being one of them, audiophile Ethernet another. Yet people want to believe it and therefore believe it.

Hi, 

If you start the chain with a poor source it doesn't mater how good the rest of the chain of components is you can't improve on what you got. If you plan to stream, a streamer is very important.

There is a big difference between streamers. System matching is key.

I believe you will be better helped if you list the rest of your components or the ones you plan to purchase and a budget for your digital front end and you will get more assertive recommendations.

The service you use to stream from will make a big difference as well. Tidal and Quboz are the best available, in my system Tidal sounds more open thus the one I use. 

One of the things I love about Audiogon is that people are so willing to share their expertise and experience.  Thank you all for your replies.  Another thing that is fun about Audiogon is that there are so many different opinions.  Given the extent of my ignorance (which is epic), I am often unable to determine which conflicting opinion is most likely to apply to my situation,  

I will certainly search threads in the digital section.  I will also try to focus my inquiry here a little better.  

I am pretty much the Rip Van Winkle of Audiogon.  When last I paid attention to serious audio, I learned about different preamps and amps and speakers and eventually had a system I liked - BAT tube preamp, Odyssey dual mono amp, Snell type A speakers.  i moved and sold all of that.  I have been very occupied with other things and have not paid much attention to audio for the last 30 years.  Now I have the time and desire to listen to music again.  I don't have much of a library - a few CD's and lp disks.  I do have a nice turntable with a mm cartridge.  I do have (left over from the old days) a nice PS Audio DAC with Cullen mods.  I have some Omega speakers and 2 active woofers on order.  I have 2 Marantz SR6009 multi-channel things, which I want to replace.  . 

So I need both a source of new music and components to play it.  Because I don't have much of a collection, and because I haven't been paying attention anyway, I want a way to get access to, and information about, the music of the last 30 years, as well as classical, jazz and vocal that I am familiar with but do not have in my library.  I don't really want to buy, store, or copy CD's and don't think I need significant storage.

That's the reason for my interest in Tidal, Roon and the like.  But ... I really don't know anything about this technology.  The very term "streamer" seems to be applied to a wide range of stuff.  I see that some things called streamers are actually whole music systems - with DACs and integrated amplifiers.  Others are basically preamplifiers.  When they do have amplification, I don't know how to classify them - are they all class D?  The descriptions don't say.  

So - all I want is 1) high quality sound out of the speakers, 2) a comprehensive and convenient source of music and related information, such as Roon provides, 3) some sort of preamp out in stereo for the woofers, and 4) a connection for my turntable.  I don't have a budget, but if I did I would describe it as flexible.  What I mean is that I have plenty of money but also a sensibility anchored in the last century, and well into the last century, such that I am uncomfortable with profligate spending and frequently shocked at the prices in the grocery store.  So I don't mind spending $100,00 for a car if I know why I'm spending it, but I won't spend it for a name or to impress my neighbors, or for a 1% improvement over a $50,000 car.  

I welcome comments from anyone willing to educate me or point me to a source I can use to educate myself.  

I'd say mm1tt7 summed it up pretty good. i have a few hopefully useful comments to add. There are a lot of new words and terminology with streaming. Hopefully I can explain some of this in simple terms

Your streamer and DAC are your source, just like a phono front end of table, arm, cartridge. phono preamp.

The expression " garbage in = garbage out" still applies. Many audiophiles start with a Bluesound node 2 streamer/DAC combo, but if you have a good quality tube based system, you will find you will likely want to upgrade it. It's the good value gateway drug to streaming music but if you have the funds, go to a better product.

In my experience  both streamer and DAC are important but perhaps the DAC will have more influence on the sound than the streamer. All DACs do the same thing, convert a digital signal to an analog signal and the better DAc you get, the better the result.

Streamers vary in their abilities when you consider how they integrate to your music files you have bought or created form your cds and the online services like Tidal and Qubuz. You become married to the software of the streamer, as the software is what navigates you through your music choices. Also better streamers clearly do sound better, don't buy into the "bits is bits" argument. 

Roon is simply another music management software that you use instead of the one the comes with your streamer. It is very good, but I found it did not sound quite as good as using the Lumin native app, when I was using a Lumin streamer, but I suggest you do get a streamer that will give you the option to use Roon. Then you can decide for yourself. To do so it has to be what is called a Roon Endpoint. Then you have the option to try it and see if you like it.

Finally MQA. People are so divided these days and there are people who think it's fine and other that seem to want to go out of their way to denigrate it. 

I live in Canada and we don't have the option of Qobuz here. I use Tidal and it sounds pretty darn good. Some MQA tracks sound better than the non MQA tracks, and some don't . The inherent recording/mastering of a track has way more influence on how good it sounds than if it's in MQA or not. Through an out of Canada friend I was able to access Qobuz and didn't find it significantly better in any consistent way than Tidal. My current DAC does not do MQA but I don't care, it sounds better than the DAC in the Bluesound that does do MQA.

Hope this helps you on your journey. As was mentioned before, you can try and navigate all the bits and pieces of this or simply one of the better integrated streamer/DACs from Lumin, Auralic. Both have mature, responsive software, sound great, and can act as Roon endpoints.

You probably have a laptop PC laying around and I assume that you have a CD player with a decent DAC or a separate DAC. I would suggest that the first thing you try is to get a trial Qobuz account and use your PC as the streamer. Hook the PC up to your DAC with a USB cable and get a sense of the sound quality. Pick a few tracks that you have on CD and compare them to the streamed version - making sure that the versions are the same (not remastered). An original unremastered version on the streaming service will always be 44.1/16.

You may find, as I did, that the sound quality using a PC as your streamer is about as good as playing a CD. I don't expect a streamed file to sound better than a CD played through the same DAC so if they are equal then the streamer must be doing its job reasonably well without harming the digital file. If the streamed file sounds a lot worse than the CD then it's a good indication that you will gain sound quality with a better streamer.

This is a good exercise to set your expectations. If you go ahead and spend a lot of money on a streamer it will be a good idea to compare it to a few CDs to see if the money spent bought you additional sound quality. I do the best I can to suppress expectation and confirmation bias by comparing components against a control. Using your CD rig as a control to compare streamed file performance will help keep you grounded.

BTW, I mentioned Qobuz instead of Tidal because you don't have to worry about MQA with Qobuz. Some people buy into the MQA story and some don't (I'm in the latter category) but if you decide to go with MQA you will need to understand the unfolding process and how it relates to different components in the stream, particularly the streamer and the DAC.

Lastly, if you try streaming and you really like it you may decide to venture into Roon. Before you spend significant bucks on a streamer I suggest that you research Roon and get a sense of whether or not you might use it in the future. Roon has it's own ecosystem and how it operates will affect the streaming and file management system you put together.