A few weeks later Rivo+ and Lineo5 went up against far more serious competition by way of Aurender's N150. That is a more traditional high-end streamer with optional integrated storage and dedicated built-in linear power supply. Since the Rivo+ offers many connectivity options, we chose I²S as best sounding at my house but as the cheapest Aurender option, the N150 was limited to USB. Since the Rivo+ has no internal storage, we limited ourselves to Qobuz to ensure parity of data entering the streamers. Aurender's design philosophy prioritizes noise isolation and clock integrity which produced a more relaxed presentation with warmer tones but leading edges not as sharp. The Aurender brought an extra dose of warmth and weight with a low noise level while the Rivo+ won on dynamics and perceived speed at the expense of tonal accuracy, especially in the upper midrange. This specific comparison revealed that the Aurender is the overall more easy-sounding streamer that will pair better with high-resolution DACs. If $2'000 is your budget, the Rivo+ however has nothing to be ashamed of, quite the contrary. Depending on associated gear and listening biases, I can easily see audiophiles picking the Rivo+ over the Aurender. My personal bias being in favour of flow, resolution from low noise rather than accentuated transients and acoustic instruments sounding as natural as they can, I'd pick the Aurender by a small margin but the Rivo+ sure sounded amazing with electric guitars and drums. Pick according to taste. They are different but I wouldn't necessarily call one better which is a win already considering the Volumio pair is significantly cheaper.

We finished our comparative journey at my place where obviously the Lumin U2 sits in another price tier (almost thrice the Rivo+), not to mention the $11'000 U2X that overlapped for a few weeks while I wrapped up this review. The non-X version of the U2 brings elaborate internal clocking, multiple linear regulators and sophisticated isolation on the i/o to add up to a fairly dramatic difference over the Rivo+. I could spend a page describing the sonic differences but let me summarize it this way. At no time did the Rivo+ allow me to forget that I was listening to a digital stream even when dealing with the highest quality recordings. If the information is present, the Lumin U2 suspends disbelief and lets you hear real live instruments. The difference comes from very low self noise which allows micro textures and micro dynamics to come through unaffected, providing a rich and fully believable sound for acoustic recordings. Those qualities also translate to better imaging, better layering and instruments that appear in 3D between the speakers, not just flat cut-outs of themselves. I know how many readers will jump to reviewer or buyer-confirmation bias to explain what I heard even though there were three of us listening. That's why I took a few paragraphs earlier to lay the foundation on why those differences can exist where they shouldn't.

In conclusion, the Rivo+ with Lineo5 is a superb upper-tier streamer at mid-tier pricing while the U2 approaches the very best where all comes down to differences in engineering which dictates differences in price. Let me now wrap up this already lengthy commentary. The Volumio Rivo+ with the Volumio Lineo5 sits at a particularly attractive point on the performance curve. At a comparatively modest price, it offers a good dose of high-end digital performance with good features and excellent software once past initial boot-up foibles. In the real world especially when feeding a strong DAC with good tone density, the difference between the Rivo+ and transports costing a good bit more can become surprisingly irrelevant and down to a matter of preference rather than superiority. Yet unlike what Internet buzz might lead you to believe and as good as it is, the Rivo+ is not quite a giant slayer. But it is my favourite option below $3'000 without a doubt. Which brings us to the central insight of this review. A streamer's job is not to impress with visual drama or hardware excess. Its role is simpler—and more subtle: to deliver bits quietly, precisely and without drawing attention to itself. In that respect, the Volumio Rivo+ succeeds with honours. With the right DAC, perhaps Volumio's newly announced Preciso DAC plus the Lineo5 power supply, it becomes less a piece of electronics and more a nearly translucent digital conduit.