This is like the ethernet and power cables threads.
It’s going nowhere, where the discussion about high end streamers?
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I suggest the following
Take your seat up and go to the shop where you can plug it in and listen to High end streamer. After listening, you will know the difference.
But yes, it is hefty pricetag
I just bought the Innuos statement after having had the mini MK2.
Already in the first 30 seconds, I was close to tears
But this only makes sense on high end systems.
On normal systems of a few thousand dollars it doesn’t.
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Phil, I think that’s because there’s no such thing as a “high-end” streamer. There are streamers that work, and streamers that don’t work. The digital world is like that. That’s why there’s no “high-end” Ethernet switches or cables, and no “high-end” power cables.
Makers of luxury goods would always like you to believe that their egregiously overpriced products are somehow “high” end, somehow “better” than the more plebian commonplace reasonable-priced equivalents, but that term really has no meaning. Sometimes the luxury good is less functional than the mass-market version!
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A very important observation.
I got the same SQ running RopieeeXL with a Pi 4 Model B as endpoint as Innuos statement. And that was with the standard 10 eur powersupply. I did try the Ferrum Hypsos LPS on the Pie and it didn’t make any SQ improvement in my system.
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And what is this supposed to show? That you have functioning tear ducts?
It strikes me as foolhardy to fork up close to 14000 € based on an emotional response to … yes, what exactly. Can’t be the streamer alone, as you also need a DAC, preamp/amp, and speakers, all set up in a particular room, and you listening to it all in a particular mood. The mood is important, and an experienced salesperson will know how to get a potential customer into the right mood.
Personally, should I feel like shedding a few fears, I’d chop up an onion or two. And to go even cheaper: just thinking of buying a high-end streamer, which I consider to be a useless product, and my needlessly decimated bank account will also do the trick for me.
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Hey @Kevin_Welsh,
Thanks for joining in the conversation. Can you please update your user profile to comply with our Community requirements for industry professionals?
It’s unclear to other users that your comments reinforce claims relating to your products. Thanks! 
Secondly - another biased ‘listening’ setting with the result that could be expected.
Hi Graeme,
I have built many streamers and A/B blind tested with high-end branded only streamers (OK circa $3,000+.) When I DIY spent circa $1,500 on RPi based products, LPSs, a good DDC, 7” touch screen, machined Ali case and some home-made cables etc, Ropieee . I could not hear the difference at that price point ($1500 against $3000.) Another outcome was I have a $10,000 streamer/DAC combo and my DIY streamer bettered the streamer side and now have my $1,500 DIY in its place yet using the DAC side only.
I even made some over the top HDD chases/filters/anti-vibration etc and that over a standard USB 2.0 cheap 2.5” drive = Again, I could not hear the difference in the digital domain.
I have some reference Chord Kit and Wilson Benesch ACT speaker – which too me are end-game! (did I really say that! … am taking up-grade-itis medicine at the mo)
Using cheap products around a RPI you can hear a lesser difference against my $1,500 DIY one.
My takeaway after spending tooo much £$£$ on tooo many streamer projects is that you do not need to spend a lot to get great QS from a RPI based streamer setup (the DDC part seemed key to me and the RPI was a great performer when partnered well.)
Spending on a better Amp and speakers gives you way more bang per buck IMHO.
This is just my experience. We all hear things differently. I was biased towards more $ in the engineering might be best, but for streamers not for me.
…do not get me started on DACs 
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Marco was perhaps a little direct, but Florian’s post niggled me too. It’s the inference that high $$$$ = good sound qaulity and that only spending a few thousand means your hi-fi isn’t good enough to hear the subjective difference between a normal and a high-end streamer.
It’s the same old “highly resolving system” argument peddled by those who like to think they’ve bought a membership to an exclusive club.
No one has defined what they mean by a highly resolving system, though it is always inferred to have to cost a great deal of money.
It’s very easy to measure whether a system is highly resolving, but the “golden-eared” subjectivists excoriate measurements because more often than not, the measurements are at odds with their beliefs.
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Cables are very simple (as compared to a streamer). There’s no software and arguably very few ways to implement it. It’s fairly easy to map out the theoretical values that would lead to a perfect cable. The connectors need a tight fit with low electrical resistance. The optimal values for impedance and capacitance can be determined. There are a few other aspects (skin effect) to consider (or not) as well. Once a cable is “perfect”, though, it can be ignored. A cable cannot make music sound more accurate than using a “perfect” cable. And any 2 “perfect” cables should sound the same.
In the real world, can we achieve a perfect cable? Can a $3 power cord be a “perfect” cable? What about $30? Or $300?
When it comes to streamers, we have much more complexity to deal with.
Unlike cables with essentially 1 viable implementation (termination + wire + insulation), streamers offer at least 2 radically different implementations: USB Output -vs- Digital Audio Signal (I2S, AES/EBU, S/PDIF, etc.) Output. There are also other concerns like the underlying operating system, clocks, clock distribution, and software drivers. Plus, how the data gets there (RAAT, NAA, UPnP, local storage, etc.)
I hope we are all still in agreement up to this point.
A DAC accepting a signal from a streamer via a USB connection at a minimum must:
- unpack the USB packets
- buffer that data
- clock that data to create an I2S signal (some DACs use other approaches)
- pass that I2S signal to the DAC chip(s) (some DACs use other approaches)
A DAC accepting a signal from a streamer via an I2S connection at a minimum must:
- pass that I2S signal to the DAC chip(s) (some DACs use other approaches)
I did say “at a minimum”.
I’m not sure exactly what the OP means by “high-end” streamer.
One benefit of a streamer device with an output other than USB (does this make it high-end?), assuming your DAC has the matching input, is that you can listen for yourself to determine if the cost of that device is worth it.
A Challenge: try using various devices you have lying around as your streamer and connect them to your DAC via USB. (Raspberry Pi, Laptop, Desktop, Nucleus, etc.) If one ever sounds different from another, you have your answer. If not, by all means, use the device you like best: be it the cheapest or the prettiest or the smallest or the biggest.
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I think I’d say those are three radically different outputs: USB (and not just “Output”, but USB Audio), I2S (a one-way host-clocked protocol designed to be run over busses, not cables), and the others (AES and S/PDIF basically being the same oversimplified early oneway host-clocked protocol). Aside from that, all in agreement up to that point, yes.
Then you describe two different approaches to building a DAC, but without drawing any conclusions from the comparison. Both approaches have pros and cons.
What answer? So they sound different – which one sounds better? Oops, wait, but streamers aren’t about sound, which is the core mismatch to this discussion – they are about data delivery. To determine which streamer does data dellivery best, you need test instruments, not ears.
Even if they don’t sound different, this is probably a good idea, don’t you think? 
Thanks Grame for pointing this out. Very disingenuous on Kevin’s part. I didn’t know he’s just plugging stuff from their site in here:
- I2S Output: The native language spoken by DAC chips is I2S. So that’s where we started. I2S means audio without translation, and if you haven’t heard it, you haven’t heard digital.
If you’re not a cyborg with direct I2S input to your brain, you haven’t heard digital.
There seems to be no end to reselling of digital by elevating hardware implementation details to “features”.
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That isn’t the way it works though. It’s about performance, not just price. Price is just as simplistic a way of looking at these things as measurement only. And money doesn’t guarantee performance any more than measurements guaranteeing a pleasant sounding amp.
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If any 2 “streamers” over USB can sound “different” from each other, then the benefit of (I prefer to say “high quality” rather than “high end”) a “high quality” streamer is that it will sound more accurate. Which ones are high quality? Everyone can decide this for themself.
If they do sound different, then my ideal criterion would be to go with the one that sounds “more accurate”, not “better”.
If they do not sound different, then pick any criterion you like.
The difference there is due to different software doing different things to the data.
A streamer’s job is to take TCP data packets and convert them to a feed to a DAC. I’m not buying that a $5,500 streamer does things any better than a Raspberry Pi.
Wow.
Lewis, you’re saying that the only reason you’re not selling your family into slavery is that you’re not allowed to? Kudos! Most people wouldn’t be that honest about themselves in public! Or that enthusiastic about audio hardware. Not that the ATC aren’t good speakers, of course.
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Spot on.
Let’s go as simple as possible.
Any streamer, basic or high end, gets the very same tcp/ip packets.
Let’s assume an USB connected DAC in this scenario.
To be bit perfect the streamer(s) have to deliver the same data packets to the DAC. Not negotiable.
The DAC buffers data and controls the flow of new packets. No audio critical timing involved if everything works ok.
Where is there any room for fancy gear? The streamer works or it doesn’t.
A few thoughts:
– In my early days of streaming, I had a BlueSound Node followed by a few Devialet products that featured streaming. The SQ evolution was plain to hear.
– I eventually decided to move to a dedicated streamer and went with a Lumin T2. Again, a nice but subtle SQ evolution from the Devialet experience.
– I now have a Lumin X1 and the SQ evolution was even more stark, perhaps due to the separate power supply, top-end DAC, Lundahl output transformers, etc.
My final two points are, I think, closer to your question: 1) The X1—and the entire Lumin line—features a French innovation called Leedh Processing. It’s a digital volume control that obviates the need for a preamplifier. So, for me, one of the key benefits of a high-end streamer is that I no longer require a separate costly preamplifier with associated cabling, and 2) Lumin has developed a terrific app that has caused me to listen to music more via its bespoke app than via Roon. My point is that some high-end streaming companies have their own ecosystem that can be highly beneficial.
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And just how does one determine with an entirely subjective instrument like the human ear what is more “accurate”. Accurate compared to what? What you really mean is what sounds subjectively “nicer”, no?
The only way to measure accuracy is with test instruments - it then becomes trivial to determine if one thing is more accurate than another.
You wax lyrical about timing and clocking. Errors in these would cause jitter. My DAC is guaranteed to ensure jitter induced side bands stay below -144 dB irrespective of input. That’s so far below the threshold of audibility that it’s just ridiculous.
I’d like to hear how your expensive streamer could make my music sound more “accurate” when it seems that Benchmark Media has engineered out any possible influence that the upstream digital source can have on the DAC’s analogue output.
We’re not all gullible audiophools who can be swayed by marketing hyperbole. Some of us are scientists and engineers. People who possess a fundamental understanding of scientific and engineering principles, who have enquiring minds and can separate facts from ■■.
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