Thanks! Will play around with it and share my thoughts this weekend.
Very interesting scenario bilaltata with great comments from everyone. And nice speakers man!
To me, as the integrated is such a recent purchase, similar to what Scottie said, spending more time (like months) will help to ease into the changes, and allow you to become more familiar with each piece of kit over extensive periods. The differences should become apparent.
Another option could be - keep the Direct Stream, and trade your integrated amp for Anthemās STR power amplifier and go back to using the Direct Stream as your controller. Double the power. Even though the Sopra 3ās are pretty efficient, I am positive they would love the extra headroom. Might be the shortest pathway to better sound. 
thanks for sharing bilaltata- and good luck!.
1 Like
Hi Tj, yes it is an interesting scenario. My initial impressions of moving from Roon-Bridge-DSD-Mono Blocks to the Integrated Amp have been quite good actually. I was thinking that the integrated would not be as good as my previous system but I am enjoying the sound and convenience. Previously I had tried to do room correction thru Roon/REW but the results were not very pleasant for me. But with ARC room correction the results are good. I think its probably because it adjusts for Room Gain where as REW correction that I was using was trying to get everything as flat as possible.
I donāt see my self upgrading to the Anthem STR Power Amp though. I kind of like the preamp functionality of the STR Integrated over using the DSD direct to amps. And like you said the Speakers are quite efficient so no need for the extra power. I donāt see my self using more the 15-20% of the 200Watts that the STR integrated pumps out. My previous Mono-Blocks were rated for 180W per channel in to 8 Ohms.
Thank you for chipping in!
1 Like
thatās great! Anthem products are awesome. I used to have a Anthem 200 watt integrated about 7 years ago - and it was a solid performer. but the new STR series products are on another level for sure.
glad you are digging your new integrated - from a Canadian company to boot! go Canada go
1 Like
I have a similar scenarioā¦ Lumin T2 (streamer/dac) analog going into an Anthem STR preamp. I wanted the Lumin āmagicā, however, I want ARC and subwoofers too. I found out that using subs turns on the āConvert Analog 32/192ā feature which means the Anthem is reconverting the analog signal to digital and reprocessing it in the Anthemās DACs.
My concern is like yours, am I hearing the Lumin dac or the Anthemās dac? I donāt want to double process the same signal. I might not hear a huge difference now, but it bugs me to death ha.
Iām thinking about selling my Lumin and just using a streamer like the Lumin U1 mini or Bluesound Node 2i.