Better DAC or better Streamer

@eddy1 Here is another couple of curve balls: 

First curve ball: whether you upgrade DAC or not: 

Not sure if you just stream direct or if you play files, but if it is the latter this may be worth a read. I admit I am not that computer "tweaky", it takes lots of time to convert and upsample local files, and my DAC is not conducive to higher bit rate files, but this software was developed for the Chord products as they love upsampled files. There is a list of other DAC's that work well with the software. 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62699-a-toast-to-pggb-a-heady-brew-of-math-and-magic/#comment-1126311

https://www.remastero.com/pggb.html#dacs

Second curve ball: upgrade to a different DAC? 

Another few comments to digest that I have read lately comparing Gustard DAC's to Dave DAC: The first is from that thread above from an owner of both, and the second is from a review of the latest Gustard, but he also owns the Dave: 

"Not much help but I had no issues with the Gustard driver on Windows (build 1903) or Linux, 768/705k worked great and sounded sweeter. Really excellent dac - and not just "for the money". As I've said elsewhere, if I didn't have the Dave, I'd be happy with the Gustard X26pro. "

"I’ll say it right from the start that the X30 is exactly as resolving as the Chord DAVE and exactly as fast and impactful sounding.....In layman’s terms, X30 can do proper justice to live music, big orchestras, and classical masterpieces. And I’m not exaggerating a single bit. The biggest surprise came when the naked Chord DAVE (without the M Scaler) was connected to the same Rockna Wavedream NET via USB and in no time the size of the room felt smaller. The sounds were no longer free and unhindered as they were on the X30. The DAVE didn’t quite live up to its name (Digital to Analog Veritas in Extremis) projecting a shier, flatter, and smaller image in front of me. The X30 on the other hand, sounded exactly how a properly engineered DAC should perform....While it doesn’t outplay the Wavedream Signature, it again outplays the Chord DAVE when it comes to the force behind the bass. When it needs to impress and add a higher sound pressure level, it would do that more impressively. I would never call the DAVE lacking energy in here, but that’s what I’m thinking about when I’m comparing these two... the X30 with its overkill quad mono design brought forward the lost layers of resolution. I can’t differentiate it from my $18.000 Wavedream Signature or $14.000 Chord DAVE in terms of how much nuance there is. Is it as resolving, clean, and transparent? Yes!"

For the price of the Dave you could buy the Gustard X30 and the Nagra and have $6000 left over.

The Gustard is available direct or through Amazon- try it for 30 days, compare to the Hugo and return it if isn't better (?) 

@nubiann 

So I get that a dedicated box is the way to go but beyond the use of a decent power supply, utilizing a well thought out circuit designed to reduce noise and populated by good components, there appears to be little opportunity for sonic improvement in employing super expensive esoteric components etc.

I suppose you could make the same argument for any solid state or a tube amplifier then, yes? So once someone gets to that 2-3K level, there are no further benefits to be had? 

So the OP is using a DAP as a streamer right now.  I don’t know but I would ask if it is galvanically isolated, does it suppress jitter, and how good is the power supply?  These things are material, and I’d be hard pressed to think it compares to a good dedicated streamer when all these important aspects are considered.  I have found that streamers matter a lot, and it just seems like using a DAP as a streaming source for something like a DAVE or any other DAC on that level is a pretty big mismatch.  Just my opinion. 

@soix

So the OP is using a DAP as a streamer right now. I don’t know but I would ask if it is galvanically isolated, does it suppress jitter, and how good is the power supply? These things are material, and I’d be hard pressed to think it compares to a good dedicated streamer when all these important aspects are considered. I have found that streamers matter a lot, and it just seems like using a DAP as a streaming source for something like a DAVE or any other DAC on that level is a pretty big mismatch. Just my opinion.

I was of the same opinion, and since then @ghdprentice stated this above;

I’ve used all of these through my main system which has a good DAC. The A&K (A&K SP2000) is a joke in comparison to either of the Aurenders...

Our similar opinions seem to have been verified: Proof is in the pudding as they say, assuming the SP2000 is cut from the same streaming cloth as the SP3000.

I suppose you could make the same argument for any solid state or a tube amplifier then, yes? So once someone gets to that 2-3K level, there are no further benefits to be had?

Yes I agree on the face of it, we could make that comparison/ argument but it would be a flawed one. When you consider what a streamer does in the chain, there are profound differences between the function of a Tube or SS amp in how their internal components reproduce the signal. A streamer goes nowhere near a music signal, it just hands off a stream of data its collected from a server.

Please forgive me following my maybe flawed or inadequate knowledge, but an amplifier is quite a different animal in a audio reproduction chain.(e.g) I suppose you could define it as the pre-amp and or power amp is processing the actual music and where as the streamer is collecting one’s and zeros.

For instance, of course you will know, in a push pull, transformer driven tube amplifier, there are many differences and quality indicators apparent when using better components, such as quality driver and power tubes which have an undeniable measurable and audible impact, if say a tube amp is capacitor coupled, the choice of cap’s and values will both profoundly affect the sound quality and signature, and there are more we could add and therefore there is a logical correlation between components ad sound quality, although many high end brands milk it by applying snake oil prices to HIFi gear more generally.

I have always thought of streamers as not even powerful PC’s, but as packet receivers, running bespoke software to allow us humans to understand the recompiled files via a rudimentary GUI.

For the uninitiated of which there are probably not many on our forum, so I will keep it respectfully short. When we select a track to play, the streamer communicates with the streaming service’s server to request the music file, the music file is transmitted from the server to the streamer in small units called data packets. Each packet contains a portion of the music file along with information about how to reassemble the data

The streamer simply receives these packets and reassembles them into a continuous stream of digital audio data. Just like a PC. this process is managed via industry standard protocols such as TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol), which ensure that packets are delivered in the correct order and without errors. It then says over to you "DAVE" turn this little lot into music and that’s all the streamer does.

What it does is very well known in the computing world and the internet does send data packets at a staggering rate, approaching 0.5 zettabytes daily and all pretty much with extremely low error rates.

The streamer is then a after-all, just a singe application a focused but less noisy PC Its not even a "source" using the definition we all understand, It isn’t an all rounder it has but has but one job, collect data and pass it to a DAC.

So I find it incomprehensible to speculate that a streamer can have as much or as some have said more influence of the systems Sonic’s as a DAC.

If it’s not data compiling or error correction that defines its "better" sound as they all do that job and the as part of the defined internet protocols or its not a special "buffer"circuit, is it processor and or RAM speed? If someone has the answers I would genuinely, really like to know how..

As I have said I believe there are better ways to build streamers as some brands do very well but only to a point. As long as they collect compile and hand off like they should and noise is controlled, why would we expect anything more other than fancy App’s and or GUI’s or billet aluminium chassis etc..