Best music streamers 2019: upgrade to a wireless system

[What Hi-Fi?]

Streaming is a brilliantly convenient way of filling your home with high-quality digital music.

Best music streamers 2019: upgrade to a wireless system : Read more

 

[londonguy]

the prices of streamers are ridiculous. Logitech did it brilliantly at a fraction of the prices these are going for.

 

[Dan Sung]

I think the Audiolab at the top of this list is a very reasonable price for what is a really solid piece of hi-fi kit.

 

[LeighHughes]

the prices of streamers are ridiculous. Logitech did it brilliantly at a fraction of the prices these are going for.

Seven grand for a mandatory power supply is simply taking your customers for a ride. It's a lump of iron, wrapped in copper winding, together with other not overly sophisticated componentry, in a plain box. Ridiculous indeed, Naim!

 

[Mr HiFi]

What! No Linn Streamers. Have the What HiFi reviewers gone deaf or fallen out with Linn? Surely the Selekt, Akurate or Klimax deserves a place in this list. I have a Majik DSi Network Streamer. It is at least as good if not better than half the ones on this list and it has a superb power amplifier built in, for free!

 

[Sverker]

What! No Linn Streamers.

Since the heading says ”wireless streamers”, I think only Selekt (and the brand new Majik DSM/4) qualifies. But I totally agree re your verdict on the Majik DS-I. It's great!

 

[theo23rd]

the prices of streamers are ridiculous. Logitech did it brilliantly at a fraction of the prices these are going for.

What product by Logitech are you referring to?

 

[theo23rd]

What! No Linn Streamers. Have the What HiFi reviewers gone deaf or fallen out with Linn? Surely the Selekt, Akurate or Klimax deserves a place in this list. I have a Majik DSi Network Streamer. It is at least as good if not better than half the ones on this list and it has a superb power amplifier built in, for free!

The list I see includes the Selekt.

 

[danielbower]

Does anyone know (or is it possible to update the post) which of these streamers are compatible with Tidal Connect?

I am in the market for a streamer, but keen to keep using the Tidal app as the controller.

Cheers!

 

[danielbower]

I meant Tidal Connect specifically. Apologies for the initial typo.

 

[londonguy]

What product by Logitech are you referring to?

Squeezebox touch for example

 

[The_Mack]

Streaming is a brilliantly convenient way of filling your home with high-quality digital music.

Best music streamers 2019: upgrade to a wireless system : Read more

Streaming is a brilliantly convenient way of filling your home with high-quality digital music.

What no dCS Network Bridge, for dCS relatively good value as it actually improved the performance of my audio unlike the Project Ultra Streambox 2 (with battery PSU) which decreased the quality and Auralic G2 that made no difference to Roon direct from my QNAP via USB.

 

[chuck]

I am surprised by the lack of the Sonos Port on this list and would love to see it included in the future as a comparison point. I can see the argument that it is not in the same group and subset as some of the other brands listed....except that the Amazon products are included.

 

[chichaz]

Does anyone know (or is it possible to update the post) which of these streamers are compatible with Tidal Connect?

Are you interested in Tidal for its MQA support? I'm fed up with that format as it seems to take manufacturer's focus away from DSD. Sadly, few of these support truly high-res audio.

I'd like to see Cocktail Audio on this list. They've got your MQA and my DSD!

 

[James Robinson]

I would recommend a Raspberry pi + Volumio software for a much cheaper alternative.

If you already have a separate DAC with a USB port, you can add a streamer to your system by installing the (free) volumio software on a raspberry pi. Even with power supply, SD card, and a case, this will be around £50. You can then control the volumio software from a web browser or via the (free) volumio app on a smart phone/tablet.

There are cards you can add (which require slightly larger cases) that will do the digital to analogue conversion or provide coaxial/optical connections.

Next to no expertise is required for this. Instructions on how to set this up are on the volumio website and it will probably take you longer to order the raspberry pi, SD card, and find a case to your taste than to get this working.

(I am puzzled by the recommendation for the audiolab - my understanding is that, since it uses Play-Fi, it still has no gapless playback which makes many albums unlistenable.)

 

[Robert Buzink]

I would like to read how the mentioned streamers compare to the Sonos Port, the (discontinued) Sonos Connect S2, the Heos Link and other (Denon/Marantz) Heos music streamers. Most people will take the multiroom ecosystem into consideration and choose between Sonos, Heos or Bluesound compatability.

 

[bristollinnet]

The hardware streaming market for lossless and HiRes has been disrupted by Amazon and Apple and has yet to adjust. All these silly expensive streamers...

 

[James Robinson]

I think the Audiolab at the top of this list is a very reasonable price for what is a really solid piece of hi-fi kit.

DTS Play-Fi, which is what this player uses, has no gapless playback, as far as I understand. In my experience this makes a lot of music unlistenable.

I generally like audiolab's products, but I haven't tried the 6000N because of this. There may be a workaround (if so I'd like to know what it is), but if not then I'm surprised that this is never mentioned as a major issue in What HiFi's reviews of this player.

 

[Alan Roberts]

This list is preposterous—not a single one of these steamers is worth the price by a long shot, and this is a glaring example of the folly with trusting corporate-funded review sites.

First of all, a digital music stream is a digital music stream—ones and zeros—it doesn’t “sound” like anything. If we’re talking about “pure” streamers with no integrated DAC or amplifier, they’re all going to produce identical sound qualities, and that will solely be determined by the quality of the master the digital format was sampled from. All one needs is a simple RPI or Volumio-based microcomputer to achieve the best “sounding” streamer one can buy, for any price—it’s just a fancy network transport that extracts some metadata on the path to your DAC.

There is only one prefabricated streamer-only option on the market today, that comes with a full set of features to allow the highest level of audio reproduction possible, that is at all worth it’s asking price, and that’s iFi’s Zen Stream, for$399. It’s basically a Volumio-based RPI packaged in a nice, simple enclosure, with both USB and S/PDIF inputs and a USB, TOSLINK or coaxial output to connect to an outboard DAC. With a USB connection you can transmit the full spectrum of sampling sizes, up to 32 bit PCM 384 and native DSD 256 (their upscaled Neo Stream supports PCM 786 and DSD 512, for those that can find any media that offers that).

It’s fully Roon-ready, has discrete, isolated ports for Tidal and Spotify Connect, Signalyst’s HQPlayer, Audirvana, AirPlay 2 and DLNA, and will support Qobuz, Foobar2000, J River and just about any other format you could ask for. And it has everything anyone could possibly need to achieve the highest possible sound quality available from a network audio transport. Again, you can achieve all of this with an RPI, it just does all the work for you for a bit more cost.

Beyond that, streamers that come with integrated DACs are another story, but even those are all going to sound identical unless the DAC is really a mess. NONE of the choices from this list offer anything beyond what I’ve mentioned can provide, other than a fancy/costly GUI and other crap you don’t need, and if you use Roon or Audirvana you don’t need a GUI anyway.

the Naim and Cambridge Audio selections on this list are downright highway robbery. I’d love to challenge these authors to prove empirically why they sound “better”. They cannot. Buyer beware.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Accusation of payola deleted from previous post. If you have proof please feel free to share it, but otherwise follow forum rules please.

 

[Alan Roberts]

Accusation of payola deleted from previous post. If you have proof please feel free to share it, but otherwise follow forum rules please.

Was this directed towards me? Did you delete my post in its entirety? Based on what violation of your terms? We’re not allowed to challenge you for claiming that more expensive products sound better in the absence of evidence? Where is your proof of those claims?

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Was this directed towards me? Did you delete my post in its entirety? Based on what violation of your terms? We’re not allowed to challenge you for claiming that more expensive products sound better in the absence of evidence? Where is your proof of those claims?

Moderators are here to apply the rules and nothing more. You state that the views expressed had been paid for, which is a rule breach. See point 2:

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Accept that and move on please.

 

[Alan Roberts]

My

Moderators are here to apply the rules and nothing more. You state that the views expressed had been paid for, which is a rule breach. Accept that and move on please.

My apologies.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

My

My apologies.

That's fine, thanks for the mature response!

 

[Alan Roberts]

It was not my intent to be immature. There are links to curated storefronts attached to each one of these products, which was what informed my implication. My intent was to advocate for consumers, who like myself have been misled to spend more in the absence of evidence. However my supposition was indeed unsupported by conclusive evidence, and it’s possible that you were just offering sites that had the best deals available. As a new member, I don’t want to appear as if I’m committing a seagull attack. I have turned to your publication innumerable times for guidance with gratitude, and I apologize for the disruption. Peace.