My first dac: HRT Streamer +. I'm impressed!

[futureman]

I posted this as a response in another thread, but I thought I would re-post here for those on the fence about dacs. I retired a beloved Denon CD player recently (the laser died) and decided to try JRiver Media streamed through a dac. I narrowed my search down to a few used units that are considered solid but not expensive.

An HRT Streamer + came up for sale from a dealer (a customer had traded it in) for $99. It retailed for just under $299.99 in 2009. I love the simplicity of it: a USB-powered streamer/dac designed to feed into your home stereo. It's not made for headphones. It has neither a power cord nor optical or coaxial inputs. USB in/RCA out. That's it. It's inconspicuous and precisely what I was looking for. This review from 6moons convinced me to grab it:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/streamer/streamer+.html

I'm certainly glad I took the plunge.

 

[JoeESP9]

Which version of JRiver are you using? IME music player applications sound much better using ASIO or WASAPI. The free version of Jriver does not support either. Give Foobar a shot if you're not using the pay version of JRiver. WASAPI is an easy add on to Foobar.

 

[JoeESP9]

I agree with Joe except for the Foobar part. I find Foobar sounds worse than other media apps I have tried and I have tried a bunch of them

So have I! Incidentally, I like Media Monkey, however I have been unable to get it to run properly in WASAPI push mode.

 

[futureman]

Which version of JRiver are you using? IME music player applications sound much better using ASIO or WASAPI. The free version of Jriver does not support either. Give Foobar a shot if you're not using the pay version of JRiver. WASAPI is an easy add on to Foobar.

I'm using the paid version, and I selected the playback feature that indicated "Streamer + [WASAPI]"

"Streamer + [Kernal Stream]" is also an option, but I'm not really familiar with any of these audio plug ins.

 

[futureman]

Yep. My system didn't like Kernal Streamer.