Solo streamer

@brunomarcs 

@oddiofyl +1

My Aurrender streamer weighs 46 pounds. I have listened to PCs and streamers at every level all the way to top level ones. Dedicated audio streamers sound better than PCs nearly without exception because the fact it has a processor is a minor part of the component and design effort involved in producing one. 

You miss my point @ghdprentice Im not comparing a sbc with a high quality over engineered 46 lb streaming device built with precision and fitted with  custom hardware, No expense spared on your streamer.

I'm saying that  these manufacturers who build sbc's in the 3,000 to 4,000 range are using some off the shelf parts made in Vietnam, they may have some custom tuning and support, that's worth something! 
I'm suggesting we could build these same kind of sbc streaming devices ourselves for a lot less money without having  specialized training and install free programming. If we budget more we can up the anti somewhat! 
 

There is a guy on what's best forum who builds his own streamer with no expense spared, I would post a link if I knew how. I suggest everyone finds that thread, it's very interesting.  I'm speaking of high end DIY.  I've been down this diy path for a while now and that my friend makes this audio hobby all the more worthwhile! 

Getting back to the Aurender N200, the only problem I have with it, as mentioned before, is the extreme dynamic range. It’s very disconcerting to be immensely enjoying a track and then be blown up by an ear splitting, unnatural uptake in volume. Lowering the overall volume can make the rest of it unenjoyable because the music becomes almost inaudible. Thank goodness this does not happen with the majority of tracks.

Oh well, i guess one must take the extremely good with the bad. Otherwise, I love it.

“It’s very disconcerting to be immensely enjoying a track and then be blown up by an ear splitting, unnatural uptake in volume.”
@rvpiano

10 plus years with Aurender, I never experienced this in my system. A streamer job is to faithfully transmit digital bits to your DAC. Could it be the subpar sound quality on some of those tracks that leading to unnatural sound?

A recording with poor or low Dynamic Range would sound hot and unnatural. This is one of reason that I always verify the DR of a digital recording or file before buying.

Your DAC is known to be unforgiving so with N200 high resolution, you’re hearing everything…the good and the bad of original data stream. 

@lalitk 

Probably the best explanation.