Streaming Dac $5000-8000

Thanks all

to give you context I use a boulder 866 with the dac streamer onboard, however it forces me to use mconnect which isn’t much fun. 

if I want roon then I need to add a nucleus or something similar. Although who knows if room gives a better sound than mconnect? A lot of the 866 owners I think are using roon though. 
 

I have a melco n1a mk2 server connected to two Bonn n8 switches in parallel, both connected to a dual output plixir LpS. The plixir is incredibly good at what it does and well worth the upgrade from the lps I had before. The melco is connected through the switch. 

It’s extremely difficult for me to know how good the boulder streamer and dac quality are, without connecting standalone units to it… which I can’t really do for no cost  

I checked in with some stores and they said I would need something like a dcs Bartok, or a moon 680d, or a t+a dac 200 (although that doesn’t have a streamer), in order to get a definite improvement over the 866 dac streamer  

I would like a slightly fuller/richer sound particularly in the midrange  

So options I thought about were 

- getting a streamer dac like recommended above

- trying the network acoustics eno and seeing what that does, it may give what I need based on forum posts and reviews 

- perhaps even getting a cd transport and connecting that to the boulder, as it would bypass the streamiing Most of what I hear is off my cds ripped to the server

- or perhaps a newer model cd player that has a streamer onboard, such as the new Ayre cx8 being released

thanks in advance 

Went with the TEAC 701 here after similar academic search, but didn’t have luxury of home auditions of other units as with the TEAC.  I was quite impressed with what was accomplished with this device. 

I will say the Lumin/TEAC/Esoteric app is certainly not my go to…I really prefer Mconnect.

I use Bricasti M3 with network player. Mac Mini as Roon Core. I tried Mconnect but prefer Roon for sound quality and user interface. Highly recommend the M3. 

Another vote for the Bricasti M3

@acdvd 

In your original post you didn't mention you had a Boulder 866. I owned one and also hated having using MConnect. I was hoping Boulder would create an app. I did hear the 866 with Roon and you may want to get a trial version of Roon before spending money needlessly on a DAC/Streamer. Don't let the idea of needing a Roon Nucleus stand in your way. It's actually quite easy to install.