You've decided to join the legions of hi-fi streaming enthusiasts, and you might be wondering whether you should purchase a dedicated music streamer. The simple fact is, you don't need a particular piece of hardware to stream music. All you need is an internet connection and a phone or computer. But that may not be doing justice to your streaming experience or to your audiophile ears.
When it comes down to it, a music streamer is the way to go. Whether it's digital audio files that you’ve ripped from your CD collection or high-res content that you stream from music services, you'll enjoy a higher quality of audio and a better user experience. Before we go any further, however, let's clarify what we mean by music streamer.
Simply put, a streamer is a piece of hardware that allows you to access and play music via a network or internet connection. This can mean music from a streaming service such as Spotify or TIDAL, or from locally stored music files. Technically, your phone is a music streamer, as it's a conduit for streaming music. You can download a streaming service onto your phone, buy a subscription if necessary, and start listening. What we're talking about when we say music streamer is an audio device that's specifically designed and optimized for streaming music. This could be a device with or without a DAC (digital-to-analog converter), and with or without storage. With storage, it's called a streaming server. Without internal storage, of course, a streamer can pull music from a NAS (network attached storage) or external hard drive.
Let's take a look at how a music streamer or streaming server device can elevate and enhance your listening experience.
