New streamer needed

@stievus 

got it. I do have some experience with a Wired4Sound modded Sonos unit that I borrowed from a friend a few years ago.  It sounds like yours does something very similar to what the W4S unit did, except the latter upsampled with a limit of 96 khz (spdif output).

In my system, I didn’t hear a difference between that and a Sonos output to a Benchmark DAC1, but emphasis on “my system.”  One other question I would pose that is way beyond my technical expertise is whether there’s a difference between the sound of something that comes in at 44.1khz and is upsampled to either 96k or 192khz- vs something that can handle a native rate of 96 or 192.  These are questions best answered by someone other than me.

@audphile1

I think “highjacking” is going way overboard. It may initially seem off topic to suggest a switch, but the result can help achieve where your suggestion comes into play. Which is to bring things to the level of high quality CD transport playback. Adding a decent switch will help regardless of how well a streamer is designed - until you get well above about 6k (Grimm Audio comes to mind). Is that what he’s looking to pay? But if bringing that up came across as side tracked, I am truly sorry. I think we are all here to help. 

Have to say just the same, your taking the position of authority in this discussion just as easily comes across as selfish, controlling and eminently entitled. So who’s really highjacking here?

I’m excited about some adjustments that make a difference and wanted to share some findings. And if you read earlier, I also made a few suggestions of streamers to consider.

Regardless,

@stievus I apologize if I went sideways on this and hope it’s all been helpful 🙏🏼

@riccitone

Didn’t mean to offend you. I think switches are just a different topic. This turned out to be kind of like when someone farts in a full elevator and the person who asks who farted is the rude one. I get it. Lol

@riccitone No worries, I am not offended by anyone who is trying to help. I can appreciate that.

@mdalton I guess the W4S version you have tried will have been similar to mine, though mine didn't have an internal dac. Upgrading my external dac to the Merason was a big improvement, but nothing compared to after having hooked up my Accuphase transport. The sound just 'feels right'.

@audphile1 Great suggestions. The Merason dac with power supply is +2000 so that is a good starting point to try a few you mentioned. The internal dac of the Accuphase is also not bad at all, but the Merason sounds better to me. The ultimate aim, of course, is to replace the player with an at least similar sounding streamer, including internal SSD to store my own CDs. It may take while before I get there.

@stievus 

Sorry, I wasn’t clear.  The W4S modified Sonos bypassed the internal DAC just like yours.  So my comparison was of a stock sonos with digital out to benchmark, vs modified sonos out to benchmark.  The dac’s sound dominated, which is what Benchmark would predict.  

One other point of clarification.  It appears that your modified Sonos was upsampling to 192k, so your nos dac takes that and outputs 192k I assume.  But the Accuohase CD transport is 16 bit 44.1k limited, so if I understand your dac, it’s outputting 44.1k in that case.  So those two should sound very different, I think.