My Man 02b!
I’m glad you’re enjoying the direct stream. I thought that would be a good recommendation for you.
To your first question does a streamer matter? Even though digital audio is “just ones and zeros,” the timing and electrical environment around those bits has a huge influence on what the DAC ultimately reconstructs. A streamer isn’t just a file sender — it’s the clocking, noise-generation, and power-domain upstream of the DAC. When a streamer has cleaner power, lower RF noise, better isolation, and lower-phase-noise clocks, the DAC receives a more stable digital signal with less jitter and far less high-frequency garbage riding on the ground line. DACs like the PS Audio DirectStream do a lot of reclocking internally, but they can’t completely eliminate upstream noise or timing modulation. Give the DAC a cleaner, better-timed input signal, and its internal processing has less work to do and operates in a quieter environment. That translates directly into audible improvements in black background, microdetail, imaging precision, and tonal purity.
In other words: you’re not improving the “zeros and ones” — you’re improving how cleanly and consistently those bits arrive, and how little electrical trash is injected along the way. A good streamer reduces jitter, lowers RF contamination, and keeps the DAC operating in a more stable noise domain. People often don’t believe it until they hear it, but once the noise floor drops and timing smearing disappears, it becomes obvious why digital sources matter just as much as analog front ends.
Now that we’re looking specifically at your setup, a few things become clear. Your DirectStream DAC does its best work over I²S — that HDMI-looking port on the back isn’t video, it’s the DAC’s preferred digital input. And because the DirectStream reclocks the incoming signal internally, the quality of the clocks inside your streamer matters far less than the quality of the signal environment you feed it: low noise, low RF, stable ground, and clean power.
You’ve also said you have a large library stored on a hard drive you want to play directly. That requirement immediately narrows the field. For example, the Holo Red is great as a transport, but it has no native local-drive playback unless you introduce a metadata system like Roon. You could still do that by letting your Mac Mini act as the Roon server, but I completely understand if you prefer a simpler, more self-contained solution.
My recommendation is the Magna Mano, it’s a terrific unit and checks all your boxes. It stretches your budget a little bit, but you could probably find a used one using something like hi-fi shark. For something a little bit more budget oriented the Mercury Streamer V2 would also be a good pick. I would get either Volumio or Moode for the OS on either of these.
If you’re willing to use Roon and have it control your Metadata, that opens up the door to a lot more options, including the Holo Red or a used PS Audio Airlens. And honestly, Roon has the best operating system out of any of these guys so that’s what I would choose. It’s incredible for learning about your music, music discovery, and ease of use.
Hope this helps let me know if you need any assistance, I would be happy to help, you can email me at
[email protected]
