New streamer needed

@mdalton 

It is an Accuphase DP-67, Sony KSS 240A transport. Lots of detail, depth, transparency and so on....

I may be in over my head here, but I don’t understand how you were streaming previously.  If I’m not mistaken, the Accuphase is a CD player (i.e., both a transport and an internal DAC), but it doesn’t have streaming ability does it?  And based upon my advanced research skills (called “Google”), the Sony is an “optical block” associated with a CD transport.  Am I missing something obvious? How have you been streaming Qobuz with that setup?

CDs when played back on a top notch player or a transport fed into a good dac sound really good. As a matter of fact trying a very modest transport, Audiolab 6000CDT, into my Bricasti M3 DAC was the driving factor for my streamer upgrade. I just couldn’t stand listening to the built in network renderer Roon endpoint. One of the biggest differences was how articulate and engaging the CDs were. Yes there are potentially different masters on Qobuz and not necessarily the same as the CD and you can hear it in the mix but the emotional engagement aspect wasn’t comparable no matter how many songs/albums from Qobuz and Tidal I compared to CDs.

Don’t you love it when you ask for advice and you get a response claiming that you’re pretty much delusional because what you hear, none of that is real, it’s all in your head. The details, transparency and depth is all confirmation bias. Or your dac is not entirely immune to jitter. Or it is both confirmation bias and your dac sucks.

In your case the Accuphase machine is top notch. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the lesser streamers to reach or beat the baseline set by the DP-67.
Stay the course. Don’t let any of this sway you away from trying a good streamer. It might take some more time and a bit more funds to get to that level but once you do, you will probably never play another CD again unless it’s a rare album not available on streaming services (you can also rip those to a nice SSD and enjoy playing those local files thru your streamer)

+1 @romanesq 

it’s also amazing what a couple of $30 network switches can do for sound quality. Jitter and noise can be mitigated in a big way before getting to the streamer. Made an enormous difference in my setup, and am convinced it can elevate any already revealing system. 

'In your case the Accuphase machine is top notch. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the lesser streamers to reach or beat the baseline set by the DP-67.
Stay the course. Don’t let any of this sway you away from trying a good streamer. It might take some more time and a bit more funds to get to that level but once you do, you will probably never play another CD again unless it’s a rare album not available on streaming services (you can also rip those to a nice SSD and enjoy playing those local files thru your streamer)'

Spot on response, the Accuphase DP-67 is a fabulous machine, difficult to surpass by the average streamer. That's why I asked for advice which ones to look for. If you have suggestions where to start and/or in what price range I would appreciate that.