Are all streamers the same?

I was one of those people who pre-ordered a Wiim Ultra streamer. When it arrived, I did an A/B against my ancient PC hooked to the USB of the amp's onboard DAC (I do have a USB jitter filter). I couldn't hear the difference because I was so pissed off at the WIIM's operating system that made it hard to cast my Amazon HD music to it. My guess is that the WIIM probably sounded better due to it's well regarded Saber DAC chip. I'll never know because I sent it back and am saving my money for a better unit.

If someone reads this review and still thinks all streamers are the same, they have issues:

As Marcin explains, standard motherboards have noisy power converters that interfere with other hi-fi components, and efforts at mitigating this do not address the root cause. Therefore, developing an entirely new motherboard from scratch with only audio playback in mind was the only way to go with XACT S1.

The hardware is very important, but there’s more to making a good server. During more than 10 years of developing JPLAY, it has also become clear that the software has as much impact on the sound quality as the hardware platform itself. Therefore, the XACT Operating System was written from scratch and optimized for the hardware. Marcin explored all possible optimizations of the operating system and player’s code, ultimately identifying the most harmonious combination for the S1’s hardware.

XACT S1

DAC chips only get you so far. People tend to weigh those more heavily for some reason and don't give much thought to how the manufacture implements the rest of the hardware. So a $400 streamer might have a high-end Saber DAC chip so they can market that but the internal connections, inputs and OS are so-so and thus the streamer sounds OK. 

My dedicated Cambridge CXN streamer sounds much different than the streaming capabilities of my Marantz integrated. The CXN sounds cleaner and more revealing when I use the Direct option on the Marantz but only when I listening to high-res FLAC files or lossless streaming sources. If I'm listening to Spotify Connect the SQ is nominally better on the Marantz than the Cambridge unit. 

In the end, it comes down to what you are willing to spend and if you can do side-by-side comparisons, you'd find improvements. Whether they're monumental or nominal depends on how good your hearing is. 

I must be the outlier here as I have gone the PC - Roon Nuc - Aurender A10 -Chord 2go/2yu - Apple TV box. and from my experience its not as significant as some people claim. But this is heavily DAC dependent and file type, mastering quality.

I've had an optimized and isolated PC sound way better then all the others but its also a pain to use and set up/maintain. 

In the end when I upgraded my DAC (Chord Dave), all of the major differences in streamers disappeared or reduced to almost insignificancy. 

At this point I feel the streamer is important, but the differences are slight at best and most do not justify the huge prices asked.

At this point interface and apps are the deciding factor for me. example Aurender's app is just poorly implemented support is poor, the manual is laughable. And this is also the issue with many of the streamers and their apps. Specially second thought streamers by some of the biggest audio companies, looking at you Mac...  

I got to hear/witness this argument first hand in the last two weeks. Was using a Brinkmann Nyquist 2 streaming DAC for the last year. Last week I bolstered the set up (that I was extremely happy with) by adding a Grimm MU-1 streamer and the difference in SQ was noticeable right out of the box. Everything was instantly more cohesive and musical…absolutely love the sound and it’s not even broken in yet.

I also have been using Nordost Valhalla 2 cables and interconnects and a Nordost Switch so maybe I’m just a sucker drinking the snake oil, but I couldn’t be happier!

Ears > Charts for me!