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Against the Burson $950 DA-160, Metrum Acoustics €700 Octave + $495 April Music U3 and €3.495 Antelope Audio Zodiac Gold/Voltikus. In the $1K club and if you value image density, organic flow, rich tone colors and powerful bass, the Burson and Metrum are formidable choices over the more detail-centric and airy spacious but timbrally paler Wyred4Sound DAC2 or Antelope Audio Zodiac Gold. Is it mere coincidence that those two run ESS Sabre chips? For simplicity's sake let's borrow from the Taoist five elements to create basic categories. That fundamentally puts the Burson and Metrum Octave into the earth/wood class, the DAC2 and Gold into the air/metal class. The Resonessence Invicta and Weiss DAC2 join the latter. These associations should be clear enough. They don't imply that the other elements are missing if not mentioned. It's about emphasis and focus. Differences between contemporary converters at these prices tend to be quite small. It's more helpful to first have a sense of flavors. That's what the classes represent. Within a class different levels of competence distinguish lesser from more advanced machines.
Left top to bottom: Metrum Octave; HRT Streamer II+, APL Hifi NWO-M, ModWright LS-100, Bent Audio Tap-X, Esoteric C-03
Right: iMac, Pure Music 1.81d5r4, Burson DA-160, April Music U3, Antelope Audio Zodiac Gold/Voltikus, Schiit Lyr
The HRT Streamer II+ also belongs to the earth/wood class to emphasize solidity and groundedness rather than illuminated sophistication or speed. Over that the Metrum adds noticeable air and harmonic energy. With those qualities come stronger inward-out pressurization of colors and greater dimensional relief and layering. Simply put the Dutch plays bigger and more intense. Ditto the Antelope.


While unapologetically costlier, these machines introduce more sophisticated textures, spaciousness and projection power. The Streamer II+ is clearly drier, paler and of lower vitality. It plays smaller and less sophisticated. Incidentally all resident converters with S/PDIF inputs kick up a notch with the XMOS-based U3 24/192 USB-to-coax interface. Detail retrieval and top-end air are the most obvious beneficiaries. From amongst this bunch the U3/Octave combo in fact turned in the highest performance with the best contrast ratio or tacit presence to become the clear best buy.
FirstWatt SIT prototype amplifier; Aries Cerat Gladius speakers
While the Streamer II+ might measure competitively with $3.000 machines as Kevin Halverson asserts, this didn't translate sonically against these specific competitors. In fact the HRT couldn't even crack the $1.500 barrier established by the Korean-Dutch combo. Not that you'd expect a $350 machine to. Time to go down market to the $495 NuForce HPD.

Against the DAC in the NuForce HDP: Now the tables turned. With levels matched to offset the HRT's higher (analog) output voltage than the direct (digital) USB feed into the NuForce, the Streamer II+ quite trounced the built-in DAC of the affordable DAC/headphone/preamp. It ruled on similar parameters of scale, intensity and directness where previously the wildly costlier gear had bested it. This means the HRT is no giant killer of the sort that electrifies the forums whilst generating equal amounts of disbelief and hope. Like Kevin Halverson, the competition hasn't stood still either. Cees Ruijtenberg in particular has been busy resetting the bar. But the li'l Streamer gets feisty when asked to punch on more price-matched turf. With its size properly pegged, let's revisit sonics.


By general tendency it doesn't belong to the detail-über-alles school. There's no acid etch, no spotlighting. Some might in fact wish for more top-end energy, more upper harmonic charge and more presence kick. With the tonal center slightly lower than dead center yet no Burson-style buxom bass, there's some front/back compaction of space, some textural dryness and incomplete saturation of tone colors. This also steps down the contrast ratio. That's vis-à-vis what more is possible. On its own merit the Streamer II+ concerns itself more over relaxation, flow, ease and the bigger picture than getting finicky over minutiae, dynamically fierce or overtly vital.
MacBook Pro, NuForce Icon HDP
In my context, the autoformer passive preamp from Bent Audio was the more appropriate match than ModWright's 6SN7 tube pre. Rather than textural fill and temperance of sizzle from valves, the HRT was complemented better by the lucidity and speed of the AVC. For the same reason the silicon-carbide radar parts inside Nelson Pass' static induction transistor prototype amp—single stage, single ended, no feedback—were preferable to the softer comfier Mosfets of his M2.


If this characterization by triangulation suggests a search for caffeine and incisiveness, one further piece of triangulation remains. In the price sector which the Streamer II+ services, zippiness, general attack mode and leanness dominate. Here the voicing choices would seem very deliberate counter measures and as such far preferable to what a listener in the higher leagues might specify. The real question always is, what can one realistically expect for $350? The perhaps biggest compliment—top down by coming from costlier stuff—is how easy and friendly the HRT makes any lengthy listening assignment. Rome reader and occasional contributor Michele Surdi's system adds another bit of triangulation. He listens to a Nagra CDC or 2011Macbook Air, PureMusic 1.8, HRT Streamer 2 combo. These two alternate sources supply a Nagra VPA, Nagra 300p or FirstWatt F5 amp into Tannoy Yorkminster or Harbeth P3 ESR speakers. He clearly doesn't feel the precursor to today's machine is the weak link. The Nagra CDC keeps his Streamer II honest.


The Streamer II+'s USB-only orientation makes it the perfect entry point for committed Redbook listeners who never shopped for any digital inputs before. To explore PC audio, nothing else but the HRT is required. That's about as painless on price and complexity as is conceivable. Just be sure to add a superior media player interface like PureMusic for OSX or JRiver Media Center for Windows to your music computer. That gets you up and running - er, streaming...

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