Help With Streamer - Aurender, Auralic, HIFI Rose, Eversolo A10, etc.

I am over 70 and have followed the development of streaming / streamers over the last couple decades. It is not overly complicated, if you do not want it to be. The good news is that you can skip the many intermediary steps and go right to the highly reliable, high quality sound you can get today,

I have owned Aurlic Aries, and now own two Aurender. I have also heard the Rose and many others. I recommend Aurender. Conductor is a great app for control.

First it would be really helpful to know what other equipment you have. But assuming for now that you have high quality and high resolution equipment, then the sound of a CD, ripped file, stored file on NAS and streaming will sound exactly the same with a good streamer.

In general, streamers are like any other high end audio component in that you get what you pay for. So, you do not want to get a streamer with a DAC if you don’t need one because you will be buying a lower quality streamer (extra function you are not using and more noise and interference in the box). Also, you do not want to spend less... if you can get away with it unless you do not care about sound quality. My $45K vinyl leg sounds the same as my streaming digital leg. I don’t playback ripped files (although I have them on my streamer) or CDs... because they sound the same as Qobuz streamed music. Qobuz has over 10 million albums and over half a million are in higher than Red Book CD resolution. Years of delight and discovery and probably all of you old music.

So, I recommend as high a quality streamer as you can afford. In general, each jump in a thousand or so will result in better sound up to and beyond $20K. So you want to make sure your streamer is not your weak point (just and in vinyl playback). I have found that if you get the best in class for the money then the most cost effective investment is Streamer = DAC = Preamp = Amp... if you have vinyl also = phono stage = tt.

You are correct to want a good App to control your streamer. Aurender’s Conductor app is well respected and getting better daily. It works on iPhone, iPad and MacBook... I am sure on other non-Apple devices, Friends of mine have purchased other streamers... very expensive ones and complain about the app.

You get an Aurrender and you plunk it down, plug in the power cord, ethernet, preamp, and find it on your iPad. If you already have an Qobuz account (Yes, that is the one you want) all you do is logon once through the Aurender app and start playing music... no more fooling around. Done. Sounds like that is what you want.

You can get one with internal storage if you are bored and want to play with your computer. But you’re probably not going to be able to detect any difference in sound quality even with a bottom of the line Aurender N200. I would completely avoid antiquated means of playback: CDs, ripped CD, and purchased files. 

Aurender is easy to use and it sounds great. Amazing customer service so in an event you need help, they are very prompt. You will need a wifi extender.
If will probably discover that you don’t need to rip CDs or only get those that you can’t find on streaming done. You can use external drive on computer to rip.

As Audphile1 suggests, getting a wifi extender is certainly an option.

That is how my system is set up, as too complicated to get an ethernet cable to it.

I then run an ethernet cable to my streamer from the wifi extender.

Well, as I was typing everything out, my browser crashed and I lost everything, so this one will be shorter.

I don’t need an internal DAC in a streamer.  I currently use an Audiobyte Black Dragon DAC, coupled with a Cary/AES tube amp and preamp.  I’ll switch out an old ADCOM 5503 in two channel mode or a B&K 4420 amp.  I generally listen to Focal 1008be Electra’s.

I have a Cambridge CXUHD that is boxed up as I’ve only used it about two hours to check it out one time, but I’d like to use it as an SACD transport.  I guess I’d need a Geerfab B.O.B to fully utilize it though for SACD.  Yet another cost.

I don’t use streaming services and have no desire to.  I prefer to rip my CD  collection.  With that, I’m going to have to re-rip everything and I’m hoping I could connect a CD drive to a streamer and rip directly into onboard SSD storage.  I’m also hoping that a streamer has the capability to add album art work.

Apple’s music app/system was fine for me, until it decided to no longer work after their IOS 18 update some months back.  It has never been fixed.  I’m just tired of the never ending changes to Apple’s ecosystem as well.  So often, it seems as though it’s released “half baked”.

I’m just looking for simplicity and reliability in a streamer that I  hopefully could transfer the library off of and onto my phone or iPad for “on the go” music.  Maybe such a thing doesn’t exist.  I don’t know, that’s why I have reached out to all of you fine folks.

Thank you all for your help!

Check out the Bluesound Node Vault.  It’s well within your budget and has plenty of storage.