Better DAC or better Streamer


Hello,

Which is better upgrade between the two?

1.  Chord DAVE DAC.

2.  Nagra Streamer. 

I am currently using Chord M Scaler with Hugo TT2 DAC.  Also using Astell&Kern SP3000 DAP for streaming the music.

Thank you,

 

 

eddy1

@yyzsantabarbara

There was someone comparing my $3k PBD streamer to the $13k or $20k PBD streamer and they could not tell the difference.

And then there was someone who demoed/compared the Antipodes streamers with Aries Cerat DAC’s.

His results were that the Oladra with the Aries Cerat Helene was preferred to the Antipodes K50 with the Aries Cerat Kassandra.

So the pricier streamer with the (cheap laugh) $19,000 DAC was better to his ears than the cheaper streamer with the $60,000 DAC.

I have read this more than once: some people have heard significantly greater differences with high end music servers than they have with high end dacs. That is once one gets to a certain level the diminishing returns are more quick with Dacs than they are with music servers.

And no, a fiber connection does not make streamers sound the same.

 

 

@mclinnguy

I have a A&K SP2000 DAP and an Aurender N100 (10 pounds) and an Aurender W20SE (46 pounds). I actually like talking weight. It isn’t there just for looks and is a pretty reliable indicator of sound quality. 

I’ve used all of these through my main system which has a good DAC. The A&K is a joke in comparison to either of the Aurender... obviously I have the W20SE because its sound quality justifies its cost.

 

Spend $2k less and get the PBD lower end streamer which seems like the same as the Nagra. Mostly likely because Nagra licensed it from PBD.

A fibre cable did not sound the same with 2 of 3 fibre streamers that I had at the same time. The Lumin X1 and OpticalRendu were fibre optical, and the Playback Designs was SPDIF in my test (though it supported fibre). All were great but very different sounding.

 

How close is Hugo TT2 with Mscaler to the sound of DAVE?

Are you looking to continue using Mscaler with DAVE or are you giving up the Chord combo to move up to DAVE and planning on using the DAVE without Mscaler?

If you plan on running DAVE by itself then I would probably say get a proper streamer and keep your TT2/Mscaler combo.

If your upgrade is DAVE/Mscaler combo then probably go that route and add a streamer later.