Looking for a true upgrade in sound quality


I currently stream Qobuz and Tidal through my Lumin T2. I have had this about 4 years. I have AT&T fiber optic internet to the house the ethernet cable direct to the Lumin. About 30' of cable from the router to the device. I was thinking of using the Lumin only as a streamer and adding a conceivably better DAC. Is this a legit way to go about a more resolving sound. To my ears there is a slight veil over everything and maybe a little etched overall, bass response is great. I was also hoping for a recommendation for the DAC if this is a good option. $6,000 budget new or used is fine. I have had very good luck with used equipment over the years. Thanks, Allen.

backwash

Remember that 'fiber' is only local. Actual path to the streaming cloud goes via multiple paths, electric, fiber, satellite, hundreds of switches and routers. Data comes out of order and reassembled locally. There is no actual "stream" between your unit and Tidal cloud. In fact, it is not even Tidal, datacenter is probably a stack of cheap boxes rented from a Google farm.

Veiled and etched seem to be mutually exclusive to me.  Sounds like you want something more resolving but smooth.  I have a Hermes DDC running into a Pontus II 12th Ann. that I like very much.  It’s definitely smooth and pretty resolving.  I’ve not heard many other DACs and none above this price point, which is about half what your budget is.  You might like the Terminator.

Can you outline the rest of your system? The issues you are having could be with the preamp and amp as well. I had etch in my system and much of it was caused by the preamp section of my integrated amp. And at higher volumes, the amp itself, and even the speaker cables to a smaller degree. Tell us more.

mikhailark: from a data center using generic HD servers like banks use. Nothing "audiophile" about it! And posters here worry about what streamer, what cable, what DAC ...