Hello. I am at a crossroads and interested in soliciting suggestions on a streamer and/or DAC upgrade using your collective experience. My focus is actually home theatre, with perhaps 20% of the time devoted to music. The space is my wife's office by day, my home theatre/ listening room by night, and furniture placement, windows, doors, etc. cannot be moved; it is what it is.
Equipment is a Marantz AV8805A processor, Parasound A51 amp and new Focal Kanta 2 speakers. My streamer is a Bluesound Node with upgraded internal power supply and external LPS, and Gustard U18 DDC feeding a Gustard X26 PRO DAC with SR purple fuse. The Node upgrades made a very positive difference, and addition of the Gustard U18 was a noticeable and very welcome upgrade as well. My frame of reference/ comparison are CDs from a modest collection played on an Oppo BD103, fed to the Marantz via HDMI (I tried Toslink and Coax but HDMI to the Marantz sounded best). I stream a variety of music using Qobuz and the Bluesound app on my phone. The app is OK but despite a trumpeted recent upgrade, Bluesound has not yet resolved something as simple as the ability to organize Favorites by Artist or Album; they appear in the reverse order added, which is nuts. The various digital upgrades have made streaming sound just about as good as the CD. Here’s the dilemma.
I live vicariously through your experience with the enormous breadth of quality digital equipment out there. I am not necessarily looking to throw money at something I do infrequently, yet am driven by the unknown: will an upgrade provide added pleasure and justify enhancements equal to the expense for the limited time I listen to music? Obviously, a therapist could help, but I trust many of you have been down this road and can offer insight. My questions are, would a streamer upgrade alone take me to the next level? Is a DAC upgrade instead the better path? Or, am I chasing unicorns, and is my humble setup good enough, to simply let it be? I learned never to say never, but the likelihood of an investment now and then further upgrades down the road is unlikely, as the wife has zero patience and appreciation for all this. As to existing equipment, the Marantz and Parasound aren’t going anywhere, and I am very happy with the Kantas. Any purchase will likely be via the used market, to mitigate costs. My budget is in the $3K range (preferably less, usually more), which is what I was looking at for a used/ open box Aurender N150. I am by no means limiting myself to just that brand or model streamer, and have not scratched the surface on a DAC, should that happen.
Thanks for your time and any experience/ suggestions you might share.
