After a bit of a journey, I think I may have found my streaming nirvana. I started with an old laptop, then moved on to a Marantz NA7004, spent a lot of time playing with Raspberry Pis before returning to a combination of a M2Tech Young DAC and the NA7004.

My latest purchase is a Simaudio 180 Moon Streamer. It's probably a little behind the pointy end of streamers as it only goes up to 24-bit/192kHz and no DSD - 2014 tech!. But that matches my library perfectly at the moment. The streamer can be picked up at an affordable price at the moment if you hunt around.

The 180 Mind does not have it's own DAC, which suits me fine as I wanted a streamer to act as a digital source only. So for me that's network cable connection in and S/PDIF RCA out (unfortunately I have an early Young DAC so can't take advantage of the 180 Mind's AES/EBU output).

The sound is much more textured than before. Each instrument seems to be solid with its own texture - sometime rough, but in a realistic way. I'm loving everything I'm chucking at the Moon/Young combo. For those wanting a more detailed review, there's this - or look at the review tab on the Moon product page