The e.One Stream was released without being first certified as Roon Ready. We have the device in house and it is in testing, but it is not yet certified.
Hi K, since I have bel canto dac 3.5 with vb and bel canto ref link do you recommend trying it? I had read that the pairing with Roon is perfect but otherwise there were several bugs. Have they been accommodated? Has the firmware been updated?
Not sure about non-Roon usage updates. My unit was a demo for review purposes, only.
It’s on my short list of things to purchase, but I returned the loaner and bought (yet another) set of headphones, instead. I’m a Head-Fi addict.
Right now, I am happy with the Bryston BDP-1 --> REFLink --> DAC 2.5 combo, as I’ve cancelled my TIDAL subscription in favor of Qobuz and, hence, have lost the need for an MQA-enabled DAC/streamer.
Note the E.one Stream does not output greater than 24/192. It is not DSD capable which negates a big feature of Roon being able to upsample to DSD.
I also demoed this unit and I had high hopes for the E.one Stream but at its price it is too close to the Lumin D2 which is far more feature rich and sounds more musical to my ears.
Krutsch, I listened to the same E.One as you did - the exact unit to be clear, and came to different conclusions. As a pure streamer only I liked the E.one. Its DAC - not so much, as it failed to outperform my 15 year old Trivista except on MQA.
But as a Roon ready device, the E.One has two key limitations IMHO: it won’t support DSD upsampling by Roon, and its digital output is limited to 24/196, which negates the benefit of adding a DSD capable DAC and makes the E.One not especially future proof. I really like what Roon does to Redbook with DSD upsampling, not to mention I have a few DSD native high Rez files I purchased and cannot play on the E.One.
For me, but perhaps not others, this makes the value gap much harder. A Marantz NA6006 supports DSD for $700. The $700 difference between the E.one and the D2 nets you DSD, balanced outputs, a digital output not limited to 24/196, and a far superior DAC, so I still stand by my value assertion.
If E.One was $999, or better if it supported DSD, I think I’d be more excited about it even if its current DAC is ultimately not for me. I’d love to see an E.One 2.0 with those features at a compelling price point. That would also make more sense for existing Bel Canto higher Rez DAC owners looking to add a streamer and stay in the family, without losing resolution or features.
Hello so you have got it … i am interested as you know …i have the dac bel canto 3,5 … how does it work ?
Have you tried it only with roon or also with Audirvana? how do mqa files sound?Thanks in advance
Best regards
Davide
For Roon, nothing has changed from my review. Functionally correct endpoint for Roon.
For Audirvana+, it works better now than I described in my head-fi review… but there still is a problem with changing songs mid playback. But it’s usable.
I think the sound quality is excellent, but I am a fan of Bel Canto DACs (I have one on my head-fi table), so I will leave the subjective listening to you.