Discerning a difference between streamers is difficult...only me or common for all?

I’ll list what I tried…

1. Mac Mini 2008 with its outboard power supply

2. Mac Mini 2018

3. Auralic Aries G1

4. Lumin U1 Mini

5. Bricasti M3 network renderer as Roon endpoint 

6. Aurender N200

7. WiiM Pro

When my 2008 mac mini crapped out and I replaced it with the 2018 version I noticed a slight degradation in sound quality. 
Bought Auralic Aries G1. Way better than Mac Mini. Lightning DS software was very good, sounded better using LDS than it did as a Roon endpoint. 
Lumin U1 Mini - slightly smoother sound than the Auralic. Hideous UI. Good as Roon endpoint. 
Bricasti M3 network card - virtually indistinguishable sonically from U1 Mini as Roon endpoint. Sold U1 Mini. Neither of these were any good as streamers. A cheap Audiolab 6000CDT transport spinning CD destroyed Roon. 
Bought Aurender N200 to try. Stands up to and in most cased exceeds CD quality streaming CD files and hires Qobuz. Much better than Lumin U1 Mini and the Bricasti M3 network card. Tried it with Roon and prefer the sound of the Conductor app/processing. Solid, stable and great sounding streamer. Sold my very decent analog setup as I just stopped playing vinyl records - streaming sounds excellent!

As to WiiM Pro, I tried it and returned it. Sounded like 💩

So my experience differs from some in this thread. Oh and I’ve used the Aurender with 3 different DACs, with Pass Labs separates and 2 different integrated amplifiers. No issues with sound quality. Natural, detailed, engaging presentation. 
 

Some excellent comments above. Could it be the room? Could it be your connects? Is your Ethernet filtered? Power treated? All the stuff that goes with streaming needs to be cleaned up. Lots on Agon on how to do it.

Why not a Innuos Zenith mk3. It has a cd ripper ,a Nice SS drive  fantastic interface 

3 separate LPS power supplies ,isolation damping everywhere including the Teac cd ripper and SS drive,and excellent iso bearing feet ,and the Excellent  Mundorf Mlytic  capacitors , plus the innuos sense app is very intuitive .

the  Zen with reclocker sounds actually a bit better ,

i use my own Gaia reclocker , the sense app puts folders and playlists together seamlessly and sounds better then Roon which is a big bonus setting up judt hit the app button found and yiu just pick configurations the  most thought out streamer 

I have found to date and this is a bit warmer sounding due to the Mundorf caps .

tip if you want your digital to sound better still Tubulus Audio cables ,they beat cables much more $$ and only true I2S  -Audio cable  the AQ dragon audio only exception ,and the less expensive Tubulus Concentus is much better. And Ethernet cables very good ,always put your best Ethernet cable at your end point- Streamer 

land Router put a good LPS to block incoming noise,Thst cheap wall wart judt ads noise to your audio chain,digital house to house is not grounded !                      Linear Tube Audio-  excellent LPS for $750.

streamers don’t have a sound or different tonality (assuming no differences re up- or oversampling, etc.).  They have different levels of noise, but even there, the differences between relatively cheap but well-engineered streamers and insanely expensive ones can be subtle or nonexistent.  Noise levels can affect how well you’re hearing your DAC, but if it’s a decent streamer, your DAC dominates what you hear.

I have basically the same system for 5 yrs but added several things to make it sound better. I have a Node 2i with a Pd Creative power supply and aftermarket power cord. It sits on Herbie’s dots. The router has a linear power supply. I run a Cat 6 Blue Jeans Cable from the router to the streamer. There is a noise filter on each end of the ethernet cable. DX Engineering filters $50. I am using a Topping D 90 with aftermarket power cord. It also has Herbie’s under it. This was good sounding. Then I added a Furman Elite power conditioner. Also bought Furman power strips and plugged all the noisy phone chargers etc. Into the strips. I tried silver coated interconnects and OCC copper. Ended up with a mix of each for the cabling.

All the extras have added quite a bit to the sound of my system. If one of these changes were added it made a difference, but cumulatively made a huge improvement. Power, detailed pleasant 25 Hz bass, transients I never knew were there. The sound is just smooth and not fatiguing. Bear in mind component isolation,  cords, cables, power conditioning all are on the budget side.  You could easily spend thousands more for more expensive brands.

I will save all the software issues for a later date. QOBUZ and BLUOS has been nothing but problems.