New member (long time lurker) here, this seems like a very wise/experienced group so maybe better to ask than some of the other more generalized forums I frequent.
I had been using an Antipodes DX3 for many years and was always happy with it in general. Due to a move last year I basically sold off most of my gear and was just using a NUC running Roon, with USB out to a Chord Hugo TT2 and Focal Utopia headphones as my only system. Now that I've finally got my new space all finished and am ready to rebuilt a decent (speaker based) system, I'd like to explore what is out there these days in terms of streamers.
I see Antipodes has lots of newer and generally more upscale options. I liked my DX3 enough to consider them again but I recognize there are lots more options now, so I'm absolutely not married to Antipodes in the least. I'm familiar in general with Innuos, Aurender, Auralic, and Lumin, all of which look like they have decent options.
Who else should I be investigating? There seems to be a bunch of relatively small but very high quality options out there, and I feel a little lost at this point. Budget is pretty open ended, would like to stay around $5k-8k but might go a little higher if it is really worthwhile.
I'd like to stick with Roon but I'll probably run it on a separate server or ROCK device anyway so the new device doesn't need to function as a Roon Core. Ideally I'd like to have multiple outputs since my experience says some DACs do better with AES, some with USB, some with BNC, etc. Plus sometimes I like to run a separate DAC/headphone amp in my main system so multiple outputs are helpful for that.
I'm still deciding on a new DAC. I like but don't love my Chord TT2, am looking into various models from Rockna, Holo Audio, Aqua, Denafrips, and a few others, but have yet to make a choice on that. I know synergy is important so it may not be ideal to pick a streamer yet, but at least I can gather a list to start reading about.
Thanks everyone!
I had been using an Antipodes DX3 for many years and was always happy with it in general. Due to a move last year I basically sold off most of my gear and was just using a NUC running Roon, with USB out to a Chord Hugo TT2 and Focal Utopia headphones as my only system. Now that I've finally got my new space all finished and am ready to rebuilt a decent (speaker based) system, I'd like to explore what is out there these days in terms of streamers.
I see Antipodes has lots of newer and generally more upscale options. I liked my DX3 enough to consider them again but I recognize there are lots more options now, so I'm absolutely not married to Antipodes in the least. I'm familiar in general with Innuos, Aurender, Auralic, and Lumin, all of which look like they have decent options.
Who else should I be investigating? There seems to be a bunch of relatively small but very high quality options out there, and I feel a little lost at this point. Budget is pretty open ended, would like to stay around $5k-8k but might go a little higher if it is really worthwhile.
I'd like to stick with Roon but I'll probably run it on a separate server or ROCK device anyway so the new device doesn't need to function as a Roon Core. Ideally I'd like to have multiple outputs since my experience says some DACs do better with AES, some with USB, some with BNC, etc. Plus sometimes I like to run a separate DAC/headphone amp in my main system so multiple outputs are helpful for that.
I'm still deciding on a new DAC. I like but don't love my Chord TT2, am looking into various models from Rockna, Holo Audio, Aqua, Denafrips, and a few others, but have yet to make a choice on that. I know synergy is important so it may not be ideal to pick a streamer yet, but at least I can gather a list to start reading about.
Thanks everyone!
