Best Music Streamer to pair with Rogue Audio monoblocks and Pre-Amp

I hope this is helpful.

@mdalton  It’s not. 
 

There are others, like me, whose beliefs/experiences suggest that if you spend more than a relatively small amount of $ (i.e., $250 to $2,000?) on a streamer, you may be spending money on features that have nothing to do with sound quality.  

So, I see you have a Zen Stream and ProJect Stream Box so let’s just cut to the chase here.  What >$2k streamers have you had in your system that don’t sound any better than those?  An Innuos Zenith was superior on every level in my system relative to my Zen Stream with upgraded power supply — not even close, so it’d be very interesting to know on what you’re basing you’re contention that there’s no sonic benefit to spending more on a streamer.  Please share, or is it just your belief that more expensive streamers don’t sound better because numbers or other people say they don’t?

Soix. I’ve been thru this with him. He had formulated his opinion based upon what he read in the reviews and elsewhere on the internet…and he only made note of the material that fed into what he believes and deems logical and scientific. This guy is impenetrable. You’re embarking on a fools errand. 

@audphile1  Got it, and thanks.  Funny how impenetrable often coincides with unwilling/afraid to just use their own ears.  🙄

@audphile1

Please don’t speak for me, you’re wrong on the facts. 

@soix

It’s really not all about you, I was asking the OP if it was helpful, not you, lol!

Be that as it may, I have been streaming since 2004 - I was a very early adopter, obviously.  My experience of direct A/B comparisons during the last 20 years includes some in my system, some in friends’ systems, and some at dealers.   In addition to my original Musiccast system, I’ve owned Sonos and a wyred4Sound modified Sonos, both using external DACs, of course, and then more recently, the 6 streamers in my current systems (2 Bluesounds, the Pro-Ject, iFi, RPi in Okto DAC, Goldnote streamer/DAC) as well as a Raspberry Pi I built as an experiment for this very purpose.  Friends’ and dealers’ streamers I’ve A/B(ed) include DCS Bartok, Innuos Zenith, Simaudio Moon 681, various Aurender products, and others.  

I’ve sat next to a good friend who, being coached by a dealer, heard things I simply did not.  I know he thought he heard them, and I honestly believe the dealer did too.  (This friend, btw, is almost 10 years older than me - over 70 - and has definitely experienced greater hearing loss than my 63-year-old self, so it wasn’t my hearing!). Aural memory sucks, valid A/B comparisons are difficult, and confirmation bias is challenging. 

In summary, I didn’t start doing research and reading reviews until recently, almost 20 years after I began listening to streamers in all sorts of environments with lots of different gear.  This research has only served to validate my 20 years of experience.  It certainly helps explain my experience, and I offer it to others to help them as they try to sort their way thru the disparate views and experiences on this forum and others, including yours.

I don’t really understand why my contrary views are such a threat to your constitutive self.  Oh well.  I’m quite sure we’d enjoy each other’s systems, certainly more than each other’s company, lol!

Dalton I’m not wrong. And that’s precisely why you’re irritated.