Sound quality differences in streamers

Can I get somewhat satisfying sound from an under $1,000 streamer (often mentioned are $200 to $400 cheap streamers)?

@fleschler  Sure you can.  A Bluesound Node with and external LPS from LHY, SBooster, or Teddy Pardo will get you pretty decent sound and a user-friendly app for under $1000, but you’ll also want a Qobuz or Tidal subscription to go with it. 

@fleschler 

iFi Zen Stream: $400

Primare NP5 Prisma: $800

Project Stream Box S2 Ultra: $900

Holo Audio Red: $950

Volumio Rivo:  $1200

Volumio Rivo+: $1500

@kckrs - it must be draining having to read through so many polar opposite comments, so I’ll keep this an easy read. It is known we each sense the world differently - as a trained architect, I am able to tell when a line is off level by an eighth of an inch over the length of three and a half feet, while I have friends who couldn’t tell even if the level is off by an entire inch and a quarter. In much the same way, we each hear very differently, but by degrees much finer than the sense of sight. I know a concert pianist who hears and understands timing, pitch and upper frequencies so acutely and accurately, it boggles my mind. Likewise I know a good many audiophiles more experienced with listening and who hear considerably better than I can.

The differences in opinion we read in audiogon are as coloured by natural or learned ability over listening as they are by equipment performance. Mdalton and some others cannot hear much of the difference between cheap and expensive streamers to make the expensive ones worth their while. Steakster, fleschler and a few others more can, and understand for themselves how important those differences and/or improvements are for each themselves. You have to find a way to listen to different streamers in a system where the only thing that gets switched is the streamer, to know if the quality differences between streamers is something you can indeed hear. If you do hear those differences, then welcome to this difficult and potentially expensive world of our wonderful and amazing hobby. If you don’t, thank your lucky stars and settle for something along the lines of what mdalton is recommending - you wouldn’t be able to hear much difference in any case - not a bad thing really, since you won’t have to deal with the finer, nuanced aspects of music realism.

In friendship - kevin 

@kevn 

”sigh”.  You slightly misrepresented my position.  Please see my post on 4/25 at 4:05 pm.  I do and have heard differences across streamers, and I believe many others do as well.  However, due to a misunderstanding of what streamers do or don’t do, I believe that many mischaracterize the causes of the differences they hear (or don’t hear).  For example, if they have an NOS DAC that is highly sensitive to jitter, moving from a bluesound to an Aurender can be revelatory.  Or if they have a DAC that reclocks, maybe they don’t hear much if any difference.  Or maybe their new streamer also oversamples, and that changes the sound.  Or maybe the internal streamer associated with their very high quality DAC generated extraordinary amounts of jitter.  Or maybe they changed their DAC at the same time and neglected to mention that when they posted.  All of these are real world examples of threads that have occurred on this site where the OP initially claimed magic healing powers for their new streamer.  And I do believe that there are definitely some systems with lower noise floors and more resolving speakers that can make any differences easier to hear.  Finally, I also do believe that yes, in audio as in every other sphere of our lives, we are all vulnerable to confirmation bias, so yes, in some circumstances, I am skeptical of some differences that some of us believe we hear.  On one thread, a newbie swore his new streamer was an improvement - I was castigated for pointing out that the streaming technology of his new streamer was exactly the same, down to individual parts in the signal chain, as his prior streamer from the same manufacturer (confirmed by manufacturer).

You know that nice feeling you get when you walk into an IKEA store? The warm smell of cinnamon wafting from the oven?

Except the only ovens in IKEA’s kitchens are the microwaves with which they nuke horsemeat meatballs made in Slovakia.

Many people aren’t even conscious of the cinnamon aroma being piped into the store entrance area during business hours, but it still registers subconsciously and they’re feeling just a little bit better for it.

Too many people hear sonic differences between different brands and price points of streamers to dismiss. Their ears are too well-trained (some of them, anyway) to explain away with confirmation bias. But, maybe they’re just hearing that warm cinnamon aroma.