Music Streamers

Streaming made music infinitely available and, done cheaply, considerably worse. It does not have to be.

A streamer's job is to pull data off a network and hand it to a converter without adding noise or timing error on the way. That sounds trivial and is not. A home network is an electrically hostile place, and isolating the audio circuit from it is most of the engineering in a serious streamer.

Linn's DSM range adds Space Optimisation, which corrects for what the room does to the loudspeaker rather than what the recording does to the signal. dCS builds streaming into the Varese and Vivaldi systems at reference level. Roon, Qobuz and TIDAL run natively across the range.

Convenience and fidelity stopped being a trade some time ago.

How to choose a streamer

The bits arrive intact either way — what separates streamers is isolation of the network interface, clocking and power supply noise. Weight the software heavily: you touch the control app every time you listen, and with a large library the app is the product. Then decide deliberately whether the streamer should also convert.

Choosing a streamer, in detail

A streamer's job is to pull bits off a network and hand them to a converter cleanly. Since the bits arrive intact either way, what separates one from another is everything around that — how well the network interface is isolated from the audio circuitry, how the clock is handled, and how much switching noise the power supply lets through.

The software matters as much as the hardware, and people underweight it badly. You will interact with the control app every single time you listen. Roon, native platform apps and manufacturer software differ enormously in how they handle large libraries, multi-room and search. If you own thirty thousand tracks, the app is the product.

Then decide whether the streamer should convert. A streaming DAC removes an interface and a cable, which is genuinely worth something. Separates let you upgrade one half at a time and keep network noise further from the conversion. Neither is wrong, but decide deliberately rather than by accident of what you saw first.

Hear these in Scottsdale and Tempe

Come and drive the apps, not just hear the hardware. We can put Linn, dCS, McIntosh and MBL control software in your hands with real libraries loaded, which tells you more about ten years of ownership than any listening comparison will. Tell us what services you subscribe to and how big your library is.