dac and streamer or seperates


Want to spend about 5k

System right now is a Krell S-300  love it!

B&W 804's  love them too

Well treated medium sized room.

but I'm using the built in streamer and dac.  

I would like to take my streaming to the next level.

At 5k would you go separate DAC and Separate Streamer or all in one?

128x128asmithkash

@mgrif104 The Dutch & Dutch 8c was originally conceived as a studio monitor.   As far as I can tell, EVERYTHING about it, and every component, have been optimized.  They have some of the most startling imaging I've ever heard, as well as a superb tonal balance, power, yadda, yadda.  

 

I have a vinyl rig because I first began buying records while Johnson was president.  Frankly I encourage newbies to NOT get into vinyl as I feel it is far, far too expensive for what you get.  I have about a dozen recordings in both vinyl and digital and feel there are things about each I like better than the other, but none that makes me want to abandon either format.

 

Just because there might be electrical noise on the wire is pretty much irrelevant to the transmission of a digital signal.   To quote another technically astute audiophile, 

"USB has error detection (in the form of a cyclic redundancy check, CRC, on each packet). It has no error correction as such - however, any packets with a bad CRC can be re-sent - there's plenty of time at audio rates! Yes, any cable bad enough to introduce multiple CRC errors won't work and should be binned."

Thus the data that is received by a DAC is precisely the same data regardless of whether the source is a streamer, or a Linux laptop like mine.  Noise on the sending end is totally irrelevant.  The musical information is 100% contained in the data.  Everything audible that you hear is what is created by the DAC.

@asmithkash 

 

The Krell is ROON endpoint, a really cool feature.  For about $1,200 you could get an SGC Sonic Transport i5 to host a ROON core, for a few more $$ doll it up with a LPS.  Then for about $150 you subscribe to ROON for a  Year.  Totally fun few months ahead of you figuring out whether its something for you.  If not you dump the SGC ST online and unsubscribe from ROON.  Totally cheap way to find out of ROON with worth it.   While you have ROON find a way to demo a streamer and run them head to head through the Krell.

I decided to go the combined DAC and Streamer route for simplicity for my main system.

  • Less space on a rack
  • Minimal connections (audio, power)

For my office system I use a Roon nucleus as my streamer connected to a DAC/headphone system.

 

Good luck and enjoy the journey!

Well the Rose made a difference. not sure how big quite yet but i do like the option of video that it gives me if wanted.  I would be pretty cool to add some videos of live performances so I will keep it.  So I guess we are really looking at DAC's in the 4k range new or used.  

 

Who out there has a system kinda like mine that LOVES their DAC?  Huff gave a rave review to the Weiss DAC in my range