Nice review! In the past I mainly used streaming to find albums to buy. Nowadays I mainly listen to streaming. PST is getting cold most of the timeš
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For many, CDs and SACDs usually sounds better than files. My experience is everything else being equal, streamers can sound considerably better than a disc transport if you use a higher quality streamer than the disc transport. My Esoteric is much more musically engaging than my PST. My PST is also cold most of the time.
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Me too, so farā¦
Addendum: It occurred to me that I should clarify something. That is the fact that I am writing about local files rather than music sourced/played from Internet streaming services in this context.
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I pretty much exclusively stream now.
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Oh boyā¦anyone know much about this kit?:
Audiobyte is a sister company to Rockna. If it interests you call Vlad at Audio Mirror and ask him about it. From looking at the review in HIFi+ it is a part of a suite of products that work together. There is a 53 page thread about the āstackā on HeadFi.org
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Thanks!
Iām 20ā in and I donāt know if the Hub I2S is compatible with PS Audio DACs.
Do you happen to know?
Not sure but I guess Vlad will know. Likely the same as his highly regarded tube DACās. I suspect it follows whatever pin convention that Rockna DACās use. Somewhere in the Holo Red thread you can find a Wavelight or Wavedream user and see which setting they were using with the Red. I know there were several of them. If itās like the Rockna DACās it may have multiple settings for I2S and one of them is the PSA setup. In post #475 of that thread is a chart of the Rockna/Audiobyte pinouts.
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Thanks again.
I made some changes to my streaming chain (again), and I have received the SQ that I believe is as good as PST, if not better. I will discuss what changes I made (without additional expenditure) in a later post.
I received this SACD from Japan today:
Venus from Japan has made some of the best SACDs, and I have over 100 SACDs from them alone because I just love their SQ. I put this one into PST, and compared to the 96/24 Qobuz streaming of the same album. I could hardly tell the difference. When listening closely, I actually prefer streaming version better. No wonder I seldom listen to discs anymore. Like Waymanchen11 said, a good streaming setup will match (or better than) the SQ from discs. I have arrived! 
There is still a little upgrade I could think of on the streaming chain, but that will come later. I am simply enjoying the music now.
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Very interested in learning what each link in the chain you settled on isā¦
TIA
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I will post tomorrow. I have to write it up first. 
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Tomorrow is a busy day 
, and 49ers is losing so I lost interest in watching. Here is my post as promised:
I have been using a Shunyata Omega ethernet cable between the switch and the streamer for the last few months, and before that I was using a direct fiber optic link (F.O. is the preferred link between Lumin U2 and LHY SW-10 according to both). The improvement was easily heard. However, I was expecting a bigger improvement based on my past Omega USB experience. Could it be that fiber optic link is almost as good as Omega, and will Omega be better placed somewhere else?
Yesterday I moved the fiber optic link back to replace Shunyata Omega ethernet, then I moved Omega ethernet upstream to replace Xangsane silver ethernet (between Orbi sat. and SW-10). Holy cow! Tons of detail and resolution showed up. This was a big surprise because from many reviews and from my own experience, the ethernet further away from the streamer has smaller impact to the SQ. In the past I tried a few different ethernet cables between the Orbi satellite and LHY SW-10 switch, and I only heard minimal differences. But putting the Omega here has made bigger improvements than at other location. What happened?
Here is my theory. Orbi satellite probably produces more digital noise than anywhere else in my streaming chain. Omega, with its two filters, is more effective in reducing noise here. Previously my other ethernet cables did not have filters so they just transmitted more noise. With Fiber optic downstream and Omega upstream, they are doing noise isolation at all sections, not just at one location.
Therefore, it is beneficial to isolate noise in more than one location in the chain. Luca, or his dealer friend, has said in an email that it is impossible to do too much noise cleaning because streaming chain is full of noises. But one needs to be careful what types of filter to use. For instance, I am using fiber optic, an active filter (switch), and a passive filter (Omega) together. This is a good combination. When I first added Omega, I had to remove the SoTM Cat7 isolator from the chain because it did not help anymore (two passive filters made SQ worse in fact). So, this is my experience in how to improve SQ in the streaming chain (and you donāt have to get an expensive Omega to do it, but it surely helps).
Iām no expert in this field so Iām strictly speaking from my own experience.
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Thanks for sharing, very interesting, It reflects my last experiment. Like you, I was pretty sure that downstream (following most reviewers and manufacturers recommendations) is the preferred part of the chain to work with filters.
Iām finding a significant improvement also putting the filter upstream, between router and switch.
At the same time, exactly like you did, I found that two passive filters cannot work together, bringing a sound degradation if possible, too.
Streaming music seems to be a common practice nowadays more than in the past, but you need to know more about the network path and the most effective way to clean the signal.
Switches, passive filters and (once again) cables do matter, and how you combine them together seems to be as much relevant.
How deep I am down this rabbit hole, my friends!
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Our similar experience should help others who want to dig into this rabbit hole even deeper.
Totally agree that everything matters in the streaming chain. In fact, my streamer is more sensitive to cable and power cord changes than PST. There are also so many addtional ātoysā can be added to the streaming chain. Of course you already found that out, and are deeply āenjoyingā the fun 
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Streamers certainly sound different, but for me the control software is equally important. The Lumin U2 and Innuos Pulsar retail at exactly the same price, but the Lumin software is really clunky and unpleasant to use. Certainly compared to Innuos Sense, which I prefer to Roon (and I have a Roon lifetime license and use elsewhere). Both these devices have optimised USB, the Lumin has more connectivity, the Innuos only has USB, but it is almost certainly better than the Lumin. Plus the Innuos almost certainly has a better power supply.
As I have two Innuos devices (Zen, Pulsar), a QNAP server and a Buffalo network storage drive, Iāve tried more combinations than you can shake a stick at. The Innuos has a great feature - an internal switch, so you can connect a network drive directly via ethernet and it doesnāt go around the network, but itās visible over the entire network so can be used to stream to other devices.
Thanks to @vkennedy61 from ages ago I went for ubiquiti. My current configuration is very simple: modem connected to a $60 16 port switch with 1m Cat8. 4 ubiquiti access points wired from that switch together with various other devices, such as satellite boxes, alarm system etc. The main hi-fi is plugged directly into the back of the modem using fibre optic and does not go through any switches. No mesh used, minimal wiring, @dchang05 sorry, no expensive audiophile cables or switches, will try harder next time.
There are over 80 devices connected wirelessly over the access points, only a small percentage of what they are capable of. This includes about 30 devices capable of streaming 24/192 audio wirelessly and I can have them all playing and stream a few movies on Netflix at the same time without any signal or connectivity issues. Every device has an excellent signal.
You can set up as many networks on ubiquiti as you want. You also get brilliant information and diagnostics on ubiquiti:
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Ubiquiti is the way to go.
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Lumin app may not be the best controlling softwares out there, but I found it is easy to use personally. I have no issue in finding files and exploring Qobuz so I am satisfied.
I do not have Pulsar to compare, so I will not rush to judgement as of which one is ābetterā. U2 in my system matches (in fact better often) the SQ from PST. So, I am very happy with its performance.
I know you donāt believe in expensive cables, and that is fine by me. But I believe topline cables/cords will bring out the best from electronics. We do not need to agree.
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Cables indeed can make quite a difference as I found out with an Audience Front Row USB cable at the time. So much more information was comming through that cable than all my previous USB cables that I jumped head first deep into this rabbit hole.
The Lumin app isnāt perfect, but it is adequate for me to just play my music without any bells and whistles, and it sounds great. My favorite app is still the Conductor app from Aurender. Super smooth, simple, and highly functional, but it only works with Aurenders.
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