ARE SUPER EXPENSIVE STREAMERS REALLY WORTH IT

 The consensus strongly suggests just as most parts of the chain, best performance is often achieved when both the streamer and DAC have high-quality clocks, ensuring minimal noise and jitter throughout the entire signal path, will lead to better audio quality. 

Yes, but all of your Q and A above talks about clocking, and implies the clock is the only part that matters, and overlooks the most important part of a streamer: If the power supply(s) are insufficient not much else matters, and the concept that the clock can just "clean everything and make music perfect" is incorrect. 

From Antipodes: 

"a clock stage is only as good as the circuit it is used in and the power supply that powers the circuit. And the re-clocking stage needs to receive a low-noise signal with high-bandwidth, before it can re-clock the signal accurately. If the signals before and after the re-clocking stage are polluted by noise below the bit-rate (such as from employing linear power supplies) then the re-clocking will be largely ineffective. Anyone that claims that digital is 'just ones and zeroes' has not applied their knowledge to demanding real-world problems."

All the best super-expensive, no compromise streamers have gone to huge lengths to develop their power supplies, which is a large portion of their expense. 

Grimm, Antipodes, Taiko, Xact S1 have developed these power supplies all in-house, these are not off the shelf parts some Joe can buy off the street and think he can make the same streamer himself. Same goes for the computer boards. 

Not sure how Aurender goes about their power supply but their website states this: 

N30SA’s unique hybrid power supply delivers a pure DC current to flawlessly power the digital audio output board, while a separate linear power supply chain feeds clean power to the non-audio adjacent components of the machine. 

Of course we all understand power supplies in amplifiers matter, but there is a reason why people buy a $7000 Sean Jacobs power supply for their Chord Dave. Quality power makes a huge difference in all components. 

However, I will look at streamers very closely and try to invest in a very good streamer with a femto clock, strong Power supply electronics and thoughtful design, because I now recognize it can also make a significant difference in the overall performance.

Okay, your last paragraph addresses this. But just go and listen to a no compromise streamer and hear it for yourself instead of "believing it" due to responses or trying to rationalize it. 

Most times in life you get what you pay for. 

Some would say... buy a Lexus and be happy with your journey

Others would say... why buy the Lexus when you can save money and buy a Kia Soul,... after all you are just going from point A to B

Others would say... why buy the Kia when you could buy a bicycle and get there much cheaper and you might be healthier.

To each his own and be happy.

Good analogy @2psyop Exactly. Nobody goes to the Lexus forums and calls them all "luxury-fools" for spending there money this way, but plenty do this on audio forums. 

Whatever interface one uses they all can be less or more depending on one's optimization. While I2S has some inherent advantages that doesn't mean it will always sound better than usb  or whatever. Clocking and power supplies to the clocks is of utmost importance.. Three categories of clocks, femto, txco, oxco, in theory the order of quality least to most is femto, txco, oxco. In reality a well implemented femto clock could outperform a less well implemented oxco clock. The quality of the clock itself and more importantly the quality of the power supply to that clock matters a lot.

The above holds true whether comparing I2S implementations or comparing usb vs I2S implementations. The most optimal implementation for either of these interfaces would be a well implemented oxco clock in both streamer and dac. Good luck trying to find that in either streamers or dacs. space limitations for the power supply alone make it very difficult to implement. Femto clocks are easiest to implement with these space limitations, cost considerations probably play a role as well.

So, wide variability in clocks and interfaces and we haven't even gotten to differences in motherboards, processors, RAM, operating systems, linear power supplies, music player apps. All have a bearing on sound quality.

And then we haven't even gotten to differences in optical vs ethernet, switches vs routers, digital cables, modems, linear power supplies to all these devices, and I may be forgetting some things.

Some believe you can just slap in any streamer and get the same quality of sound with a fully optimized streaming setup. I and many others have experienced otherwise so believe whatever you want to believe.

From Antipodes: 

"a clock stage is only as good as the circuit it is used in and the power supply that powers the circuit. And the re-clocking stage needs to receive a low-noise signal with high-bandwidth, before it can re-clock the signal accurately. If the signals before and after the re-clocking stage are polluted by noise below the bit-rate (such as from employing linear power supplies) then the re-clocking will be largely ineffective. Anyone that claims that digital is 'just ones and zeroes' has not applied their knowledge to demanding real-world problems."

All the best super-expensive, no compromise streamers have gone to huge lengths to develop their power supplies, which is a large portion of their expense. 

@russbutton  I’d encourage you to at least demo a decent streamer from a place like Crutchfield, Amazon, etc. that allows for returns rather than blindly holding on to the belief that it’s all just ones and zeros.  Hundreds of us here have found that’s absolutely not the case for audio — not even close, so unless we’re all somehow wrong and fooling ourselves it’d be worth your while to at least try. 

there is a reason why people buy a $7000 Sean Jacobs power supply for their Chord Dave.

Yep