It’s all down to the interface, where are you?
Currently running an Imac with a 4m long cable to an Aurora sound bus power to an AN dac.
I’m a Luddite to digital - any suggestions for improvement?
(Yes I feel dirty, I asked a hifi question)
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In principle a USB DAC should be better than SPDIF, but in practice there may be little to no difference if both are well implemented.
Do you like the sound of the Audio Note? It’s unlikely to be neutral, but should sound nice.
You could probably get a more accurate sound with better measurements throughout by getting a modern USB DAC, but it may not make you happier.
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The only other DAC i’ve heard in my system was the Aurorasound HiFace which I thought sounded nice. The AN DAC is a 4.1 Kit thing, it has some decentish parts in it by the looks of things - This is the extent of my investigations. I had to change out the tubes but other than that the presentation seems OK.
If you think of a DAC as having two halves - a digital stage followed by an output stage - then the AN will be outdated on the former but have the lovely parts on the latter. A modern DAC will be essentially perfect on the former but the latter will be an op-amp setup that will measure well but be the opposite of an Audio Note amplifier.
You could spend £500 on a modern DAC and find that it is very different to your AN. I am unconvinced that happiness would ensue.
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Do I need this bullshit?
Tidal. Lossless files, big catalogue. Win.
See what I’ve started ? You all secretly wanted to know, but we’re ashamed to ask.
Thank The Lord that there is at least one of us who is terminally stupid enough to have no pride about such things 
2020 - The year of the bit
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Christ on a bike, audiophiles! If you like the sound of the AN then it would bring it more up to date, but you probably wouldn’t notice any actual difference. You’d just develop a hankering for more sophisticated filters or something.
You buy an Audio Note because you’re a digital-hating luddite cunt. You’ll never be happy with digital whatever you do to it, but you keep spending money on it because Audio Note.
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An digital stage is outdated…
OK, should I get this…?
You are a luddite cunt
I am ashamed to have been played so well and vow to up my game in 2020.
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Thanks. I’d rather have a wireless connection rather than wired, as it sounds like htm’s solution below is. Although does a wired connection provide better SQ?
How do you mean? As for where I am, I’m in north London.
Mines wireless, it’s got the music on a usb stick and hasn’t cut out once
26 year old AN DAC owners say digital is shit x
Edit: lol actual dac chips too
we went the other way from NUC back to streamer. Louise hated the interface and woulldnt listen to any music. I found it more of faff
I won’t change the interface. It’ll still be Roon.
Let’s not forget that streaming is killing artists in terms of revenue.
So was people making mix tapes and copying CDs. (we were told)
You are presupposing that people would pay a lot of money to stream.
They wouldn’t. If it cost a lot of money they would listen to the radio
The artists wouldn’t necessarily get any more money.
New artists wouldn’t get any exposure
The tide has turned a long time ago, no longer are artisits touring at a loss to promote records, now playing live and selling merch is the only way lots make any money.
Spotify pays about $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream to the holder of music rights. And the “holder” can be split among the record label, producers, artists, and songwriters
This sucks.
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How much do radio pay to play a track?
It was a fair bit years ago,and was reading the other day that McCartney gets about £300,000 from his Xmas song being played each year
It does but that’s not the whole story. As a music discovery tool, artists benefit from being on there. For example, a band called My Baby popped up in a Spotify Discover Weekly Playlist of mine a few years ago. They earned fuck all from the track being played… but they’ve done rather better from the four albums of theirs I’ve since bought on vinyl (about to order the fifth). Even for people who are entirely stream based, the awareness around tours, festivals and gigs all make presence on streaming sites a calculation that exists beyond direct revenue.
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