RobertSF

It is hard to describe. I think the DACs are similar. The difference mainly comes with the amplification and the elimination of cables and components. The system is so powerful yet noise and distortion free, everything seems to leap from darkness. Excellent resolution, and tone neutral. Effortless is a good word to describe it now.

I have a Devialet 170 upgraded to a 200. It replaced a Transporter/Berkeley DAC/ARC Ref 3 system that was powering a pair of Wilson Duette's. It was a major upgrade that completely shocked me. I bought it after an in home audition. i was not in the market. The biggest surprise came with the addition of SAM for the Duette's. The bass upgrade for these speakers is insane. Best tweak ever by a factor of 10. In my very subjective opinion, I have never heard a better, more satisfying system. No, I am not kidding. Yes, I know my system can be beat, will be beat and can be improved. And I did not do a legitimate A/B with other systems and I only used a mac mini as a source. That is not the point.

AIR is the streamer application that will stream via Ethernet cable or wifi. I have issues with Air taking the output from J-River on my mac. I often need to stop and start and stop and start, ..., before any streaming takes place. The issue is not present when I use iTunes. The other issue concerns wifi when streaming is working. Sometimes it is awesome. Other times I hear chipmunks or dropouts. It can be challenging to get it working and keep it working correctly. The wifi environment has a lot to do with it. It is not close to bulletproof like Sonos, and even Sonos has issues from time to time. I have yet to try USB or AIR via ethernet cable.

A single mono speaker would work for a small bedroom or to add a synchronized room ("party mode" as Sonos calls it) where critical listening is not the issue.

I have a 200 and Wilson Duette's with SAM. The low end blows me away. The 200 was great and with SAM the system is incomparable. Really shocking. The wifi AIR streamer is not reliable for me however.