Sound quality differences in streamers

I guess I will be the party pooper. You're using it as a streamer, so the heavy lifting is done by your standalone DAC @kckrs 

All you need is a streamer with a user friendly software system if it has one and one with good processing power is all and thankfully you can get one for pretty reasonable money and then connect you your DAC via any of the digital inputs and you're good to go.

Overthinking it and using anecdotes of people here and trusting it (including me) iṣan exercise in spiralling.

So yes connect the Wiim Ultra which has the best processing power of the Wiims and USB input on your DAC and you're all good

A Aurender music server paired with a solid DAC via USB audio, This IMHO is a solid high end setup, and it dosent cost any where near a DCS. a nice Aurender will be around $2500 new and a DAC would be around $1500 or so. Thats not bad for a very good sounding digital front end using Tidal or Qobuz.

And once hearing this ,you would never go back to anything inferior, its digital magic.

Matt M

There is a dCS streamer for $3K?  Wow

The best sounding streamer that I ever had was the Bryston BDP3 which had a terrible user experience.  For a few hundred less a Melco N100 sounded very close.

Then for around a third of the price of a Melco Cambridge Audio got me about 95% of the sound.  Currently using a Wiim Pro for $100 while rehabbing in my basement post knee surgery.  It’s maybe 90% sq of the CA.

  Worst streamer I ever heard also cost $100.

  So my take is budget streamers into a good FAC can get you most of the way to audio heaven.  Throwing more money will usually make it better but the asymptote kicks in a lot faster than say for speakers or turntables 

If the unit is just transferring zeros and ones to a DAC can there be differences in say a $300 WiiM and a $3000 dSC streamer?

And there is the ignorance, it is not just transferring "1’s and 0’s".

Doesn’t common sense tell the ones who have heard this nonsense that streaming music is no different than sending a word document there must be something else happening? That maybe those of us who have spent many thousands on streamers did it because the music actually sounded better? If there was no difference between a multi-thousand dollar streamer and a $300 Wiim how is it possible all these streamer manufacturers would stay in business longer than a few months? Because we are all fooled? We have nothing better to do with the money? Audiophile's like to pay thousands for a fancy case? Only a fool would believe that. 

Hans can explain it as well as anyone: Watch some of his videos: That is not "proove it" but explain why digital sound is complicated, this first one is not about streamers but filters, and the second explaining that digital is not simply "1’s and 0’s". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSsKdAcwUL4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-StTplQZys

More importantly prove it to yourself: go to a dealer and ask them to proove to you that expensive streamers sound better. Honestly I don’t know why people keep asking this question about streamers being the same or not over and over.

Words are cheap, and useless- the proof is in the listening- go listen.