Are there any good DACs for <3k that do streaming as well?

Ok....after having the Marantz NA8005 for about a month and over 100 hours, This thing is more than merely good. Its a lot good, even great at its price point of $1200 and just a steal at the close out price of $499. It seems the problems with this player at its release in 2014 have been fixed with the firmware updates, the internet radio as well as the online music streaming services work great...no drop outs from the internet radio stations which are more than any one will ever need. Tidal and other streaming services that are not incorporated into the Marantz can be had with Bubble upnp...and Spotify hi rez which is incorporated is also excellent as well as Pandora. the internal Marantz DSD DAC is also spot on. I'm loving what I am hearing. I'm running a Wireworld 3.0 USB cable from the dedicated music computer running Jriver, into the iFI usb 3.0 iPower into the Marantz and out to my preamp. Absolutely drop down gorgeous sound.

 

I picked up the Marantz NA8005 at the $499 price from music direct knowing I could send it back if it sucked. I himmed and haaed for months because of all the negative reviews.

Plugged it in updated the firmware. Under Internet radio, it saw all my local stations' streams and it saw my Plex media Server and all the music. Able to stream my FLAC collection via Foobar2000 or Plex on my iphone super easily.

Sounds great to me and works nicely in my bedroom(Onkyo A9010 + Vienna Acoustic Bachs) , soon I will run it into A Lite DAC-68. I prefer this tube DAC over the onboard DAC. Currently my SA8005 is using the Lite DAC until my LM CD 515 gets here.

I'm not saying go out and get this device, but it is a LOT better SQ wise(to me) than a Sonos Connect, which I have also heard. But if I knew i'd be using an external DAC I might have tried the Sonos connect

But for me I don't use TIDAL, I just stream my FLAC's via UPNP and I love the look of Marantz gear, so I am a bit biased to it

 

Thanks Gizmo! After I purchased the NA8005 I was wondering if I would have to seen it back to Musicdirect as well...my 60 days aren't up yet but I already know it's a keeper. All my files are DSD 128 and the Marantz sounds great and is still changing in sound. New out the box the sound was closed in and tight....but now it's wide open and still improving. It's a great machine and serves me well.

 

Sorry, you're wrong on this occasion...

I have a Sonica DAC and stream Tidal HiFi just fine - using the Sonica app for Android on my tablet. I needed a solution that incorporated Tidal natively. So, having started-up a playlist in Tidal, I closed the Sonica app, forced a close from the settings menu, then uninstalled it, then switched off my tablet completely...

The playlist continued to play - no streaming from the tablet

Tidal operates natively on the Oppo Sonica DAC.

I've also had great success streaming FLAC from my QNAP NAS (Asset UPnP), and it's a great DAC - take digital coax from my Arcam CD82 through it to my Rega Elex-R and on to my Neat Motive SX1s.

 

People do like the sound quality of the Sonica. It's great to have something so inexpensive sound good. Has Oppo managed to implement gapless streaming yet?

 

No this still is an issue that frankly I don't think will ever get addressed. However the latest firmware does provide some improvement to sound quality. I recently had mine modded and it sounds pretty darn good Oppo Sonica DAC mods

 

I realize this is a bit off-topic, but sort of related: assuming a strong WiFi connection, is there an inherent lack of quality or performance (or something) with a Chromecast Audio being used with an optical connection to, say, a really nice DAC? I keep looking for the fundamental flaw with the CCA as a streamer, but I haven't read it yet. Could be that I just haven't found the info.

 

AppleTV is too inexpensive to trigger the proper placebo effect.

 

Considering its price, I would say no. However, read: Archimago's Musings: MEASUREMENTS: Google Chromecast Audio - Part II: Digital Output

 

Very interesting - thanks. To distill this down to more tangible (to me, anyway) terms, I just want to know if there is a streaming-only device out there that I could buy to replace my Chromecast Audio, that I could use to stream TIDAL HiFi into a nice DAC, that when compared to the CCA, would deliver at least some semblance of better overall sound/performance/something. I haven't found the answer to that yet, so I will keep using the CCA until I find a reason (and a different streaming device of reasonable cost) to replace it.

 

You'd get better objective performance out of a laptop going USB into your DAC, but I doubt that there would be sound difference.

 

This is too funny. Here a poster at another form has been blasting away at Chord. Eventually someone from the company outed him saying “you don’t own the Poly.”

It stopped his constant railing against them. But, eventually his emotions got the best of him. He couldn’t take it no more.

This is really funny stuff on self importance and is the definition of bloviating.
I cut his name off the post. He’s inspired me to go to posts of products I don’t own and go unhinged.

Poly had issues (mine too). The company replaced it and I use it every day. It streams and uses SD card. It’s awesome.



Post:

“I will chime in here as well, even though I do not own a Poly. I hope thats ok. I know that one should not get too attached to objects emotionally (especially the ones one does not own) but for some reason the Poly release manages to push my buttons.

I have followed the thread from the day it was opened. Back than I was still using a Mojo as the first DAC with which I could dip my toes into audiophile waters. It was a revelation to me personally and the thought of it going cableless was extremely exciting. I was planning to buy one when the module was first hinted at before its release.

When the announcement of the price of the poly came I was a little less excited. But the promised features (Roon endpoint! Yay!) at least seemed to somehow justify its rather steep price. Delay after delay followed and when the Poly finally was released it was a mess. I talked to my local audio dealer and they could barely get any of their units to run reliably.

To me it seems that this is still the case for a rather large proportion of the userbase. Of course it is possible that my perception is scewed due to a vocal minority that articulares their frustration via headfi. I doubt that is the case but of course I could be wrong.

Sadly a large number of Polys promised features (which were used in justifying the steep price in the first place) are still not available. For me the lack of the Android App (and no real communication with regards to is release) symbolises this.

I think I feel frustrated because of three things particularly:

1) A company that I admire and one of whos products (Hugo 2) now forms the center of my daily enjoyment of music seems to really really be dropping the ball hard on this one. As somebody who has absolutely no idea about how good management of companies works, it subjectively seems to me that this release and its aftermath has been dealt with extremely poorly. Some arrogant answers by their representatives did not help either. It blows my mind how anybody would defend this behavior. Companies can make mistakes but should have the courage to own up to them.

2) It seems to me that not enough resources were invested to get the software side of things going. I get why, its expensive, Chord is not in the software business etc pp. But as a modern hifi company it seems to be the way forward to eliminate all possible barriers between the user and the product. KEF LS50 Wireless seems to be another decent example. So it is my laymen perspective that Chord should double down on this approach and therefore needs to get their software side of things in order. I am (hopefully superflously) very worried that the future for the company might look bleak otherwise.

3) I finally want my very own 2Go. But I amworried it wont see the light of day because Chord might decide to cancel its development due to those pesky issues with the Poly.”

 

As the o/p already owns the rather excellent Mojo, overall would you recommend the combination?

 

Any good news about the gapless playback issue?

 

I love Mojo Poly. Smooth. Having everything on SD card is great. It’s small and w case it’s one unit. I used to have tidal and it worked great.

 

mojo poly is a joke. what a rip off

 

I don’t think that assumption is necessarily true

 

The OP has long made their decision but I can suggest the Cambridge Audio CXN for those who are currently looking for a DAC/streamer. It was a toss up between the CXN and OPPO Sonica at the time but the CXN had the features I wanted in particular gapless playback. It also works well enough with my Synology NAS using CA's app on my iPad mini.

 

I don’t understand this. What other beautifully-designed DAC fits in my hand, wirelessly streams Roon, has the ability to play directly from an SD on a 9-hr battery charge, and is a great headphone amp?
I’m happy with mine, and think it’s totally worth the money.

 

My wife uses Poly daily. It woks seamlessly with streaming and w SD card.

This Christmas I’m hoping to own 2Go for my Hugo2.

 

and sounds better to boot reportedely and cost half less?
look at ifi x idsd, ifi bl idsd

 

btw, I was critisizing the Poly, not the mojo. the mojo is fine albeit a bit overpriced for what it does, buts its a good decent portable option
the poly is a joke though

 

I like ifi products. Maybe there’s a misunderstanding, though, because the ifi idsd bl doesn’t have any of the wireless, Roon-ready functionality that the Poly adds to Mojo. That’s what makes the additional cost worth it (to me). The ifi products also have a different design philosophy—you might say they put the ‘industrial’ in ‘industrial design’—whereas the Chord products are more lovely to look at and handle, in my opinion. Not an important quality for everyone, but it is for me.

 

mojo has the same sorta features then ifi bl idsd
mojo + poly = ifi xdsd. and the xdsd supposedly sounds better then then combination of mojo + poly for half the price.

 

Hmm, well it sounds like neither of us have heard the xdsd, so I can't comment on the sound. But streaming via Bluetooth is not the same as Wifi. It's cool that it can handle MQA, though. It doesn't seem to have a microSD card slot either, does it? I can see that both are portable DACs but they don't look to have identical features--this isn't an apples to apples comparison.