Do I Need a Dedicated Streamer?

I've had a few Streamers over the last couple years and as much as everyone say's they make a huge difference that is not what I have found. here is what I've tried: Dedicated PC optimized for streaming music, Blue sound node first gen,  Roon nucleus, Aurender A10, Chord Streamer ( 2go-2yu current). if I was honest the best sound was the dedicated PC optimized for streaming only.  the rest were just slight and I mean very slight differences to the presentation/noise floor but none really any better over all. really IMO the DAC is a better place to spend the money specially if it has good isolation of the input signal ie USB galvanic isolation.  

That said your using apple air play and that's not optimum so find a streamer you like the software for, that seems to be the overall deciding factor with streamer love-hate.  other than fancy case's and nice looking hi end stuff they really do not perform leaps and bounds above cheaper options in my experience.  

@o_holter

Why do people insist that streamers make a change?

My guess is that virtually all of these anecdotes come from sighted listening tests which are prone to psychological biases. I don’t doubt that these listeners perceive a difference, it’s just that the outcomes or their tests aren’t very reliable.

So given the lack of reliable subjective evidence, the only evidence we can use is objective measurements. I haven’t come across any data that conclusively shows that a modern bit-perfect source (e.g. streamer) makes an audible difference in terms of distortion, noise, frequency response or jitter with respect to the USB interface - link.

In any case, you can test this yourself by having a friend or significant other switch out something in your playback chain without you knowing. Then see how many times you’ve detected a change. If you get it right 9 out of 10 times, it’s most likely making an audible difference.

@yage  So given the lack of reliable subjective evidence, the only evidence we can use is objective measurements. I haven’t come across any data that conclusively shows that a modern bit-perfect source (e.g. streamer) makes an audible difference in terms of distortion, noise, frequency response or jitter with respect to the USB interface - link.

Possibly true in the case of the USB interface, as the DAC will handle the clocking and not the streamer. My experience has been strictly with the SPDIF interface, in which case streamer quality and jitter are very apparent.

yage

... So given the lack of reliable subjective evidence, the only evidence we can use is objective measurement ...

That's just your opinion. I'm not sure I agree with your premise and I certainly don't agree with your conclusion. So you might want to avoid the use of the word "we."

Thanks for all of the replies thus far. Based on some of the responses, I suppose that I could wire my mac mini using a usb cable to my Hegel and get streamer level quality without buying a dedicated device?

I assume if that makes a noticeable difference, that I would need a very high quality DAC and Streamer to one-up things from that point forward.