Streamer suggestions with both wireless and wired connections

No Aurender does not produce wireless streamers. 
 

I would say my components are very well balanced. I tried a $22K DAC for several weeks… there were two small differences one positive and one negative. If I upgraded my other equipment it would basically be $20K/ component to $40K / component ( my TT and Phonostage are also of this value). I can’t really afford that… well at least now. Typically once I reach a well balanced system, I will stay for seven to ten years.

How did I get to a $22K streamer. After years of trying to get digital even remotely near vinyl and failing (, MAC laptop, PC, etc.) I finally broke down and bought a Auralic Aries G2 ($5K). That changed everything. I realized there was the possibility of high quality digital. Then I bought a Aurrender N100 for my headphone system. this changed everything, I realized there were better streamers than the G2. I auditioned a N10 ($10K) streamer… the noise floor dropped precipitously, imaging improved, the sound quality really jumped… not to vinyl level, but the music started to be engaging. After auditioning a Aurender W20SE, I bought one, the difference between my vinyl rig and digital simply vanished. Both are completely engaging with the same level of detail, tonal balance and musicality. So, for me that signaled; done. I recently took home a $13K Grimm streamer… no question my Aurender is significantly better. I have also auditioned Linn streamers (several >$20K), SQ better from Aurender to me. 

I am friends with a dealer, he uses wall wart wifi extenders on his and has installed many $200K systems that run on them. Good streamers make up for deficiencies in networking. 

@niodari I meant 2% and that is probably an exaggeration.  We audiophiles spend inordinate amounts of money on the last 1%.  Whenever anyone posts a tweek here they are talking about something to make just a tiny improvement.  

So if you're ok streaming with 1% of the music being dropped bits that are filled in by the streamer interpolating and putting the best guess where that bit of music should have been, that's fine.

when you compare to CD, are you using a transport and the same DAC?  When people say they compare to CD, it is hard to reall make have useful data if they are using the onboard DAC in a traditional CD player, which is usually inferior.

Jerry

ghdprentice , Your experience with digital audio and LP reproduction is valuable. It did not come to my mind to compare streaming with LP reproduction, partly, because my turntable is not so good. Besides, I have not so many LPs of the quality I like. I did A/B comparisons of some well-recorded jazz LP with the corresponding CDs. The frequency range is always better with CDs, but LPs give smoother and non-harsh sound reproduction. Besides the T&A DAC, I used other DACs in my comparisons, including a Reimyo DAP and an Ambar Lampizator DAC, with similar outcomes . So  for me, a streamer that doesn't sound  better than a CD would not make much sense. I strongly doubt that a streamer may sound better than the combination of a good CD transport and a DAC, hence I see no sense in spending $22k or even $7k on a streamer. Your experience is different though. 

@carlsbad2 , I agree that the DAC in Node 2i is no good, I never used it, and of course, while doing comparisons, I used the same DAC for both, the CD transport and the streamer. 

My CD / DAC and Streamer / DAC sound the same when playing the same red book files… from CD (I am using the same DAC I either scenario), stored files or streamed. This is true for me by design… getting the highest quality sound at my level of investment. However, streaming sounds better when streaming high resolution files like the half a million albums on Qobuz.

I am not completely sure at how you are looking at the CD comparison. what a CD sounds like is dependent on the transport and DAC. I am going to use cost as a shorthand for performance. So for instance if you were to compare my streamer to say a $5K CD transport (with the same DAC being used) or $10K+ CD player, my streamer would sound much better, as well as having far greater functionality.

A streamer can easily sound much better than a CD player or transport. It depends on the comparison. The sound of a CD is fundamentally controlled by the equipment used to play it… as is streaming. The better the player / transport or streamer the better the sound.

Sorry if that is either over explaining or a bit jumbled. I’m just not feeling very concise at the moment.