Network Audio Players/Servers

This flagship DAC from Canada, complete with a raft of in-house digital and power supply technologies, and very slick control app, is a complete network music solution

When is a DAC not a DAC? When it turns into a multifunctional network-connected music player, that's when! Increasingly, the lines between products that exist to convert digital inputs into analogue audio and full-blown network players are becoming blurred. So, just as there are players provided only with digital outputs – network transports or bridges to be paired with an outboard DAC – so we now have DACs with network capability built-in. Add an app running suitable UPnP control software, and you have a complete streaming solution.

Sony has returned to pure, two-channel, high fidelity sound; there’s an initiative to bring hi-fi replay back to the top of its consumers’ must-have wish lists. And it has produced a raft of new products focused around hi-res computer audio. All are compatible with files up to 24-bit/192kHz and, of course, DSD downloads. HFN was first in line to sample the ‘Elevated Standard’ HAP-Z1ES digital music file player featuring a built-in 1TB HDD, and its partnering TA-A1ES integrated amplifier rated at 80W/8ohm.

Having nailed the whole 'one box system with built-in speakers' category, T+A now shifts tack to a 'just add speakers' unit. It's on-trend, and with substance to match the style

Are we downsizing, simplifying, or just looking for more from less? Whatever the reasons, it seems the one-box system, to which one only needs add some speakers, is in the ascendant. There's no denying a movement is growing, with everything from 'more integrated' amps complete with onboard streaming through to complete systems such as the NAD M10/M33 [HFN Jun '19 & Aug '20], Naim's Uniti range [HFN Mar '11 & Nov '17] – which was in the vanguard of this trend back in 2009 – and the recently-announced Cambridge Audio Evo models [News, HFN Jun '21].

Complete with a new streaming module, T+A's latest network-attached DAC/preamp is the perfect partner for its PA 3100 HV integrated and A 3000 HV power amplifiers

Tipping the scales at a hefty 26kg, measuring a portly 46cm deep and 17cm tall, and selling for £14,900, T+A's PSD 3100 HV appears every inch the flagship DAC/streamer/preamp. Except that it isn't – that accolade is reserved for the German brand's SDV 3100 HV [HFN Oct '19], which has been deemed its 'reference' model since its arrival in 2019 and remains available for £26,040.

Italian brand Volumio is responsible not just for a series of network-attached digital players, but also an open-source OS and bespoke app. The Rivo (stream) is its 'bridge'

Launched in 2022, the Rivo is the middle model in a trio of new streaming devices from Florence-based Volumio, and this digital-only streamer, together with the second-generation Primo streaming DAC and the Integro networked amplifier, concludes an unlikely journey for the Italian start-up.

Industry ‘disrupter’ WiiM continues its campaign to shake up the audio scene with another comprehensively-equipped streamer, this time with a Class D amp on board

If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone talking about WiiM in the last year I would easily be able to afford the £329 streaming amplifier auditioned here. Since its arrival in the UK in 2023, WiiM – the consumer-facing brand of California-based smart technology company Linkplay – has earned a reputation for compact, networked hi-fi products that combine wide feature sets and a forward-thinking control app, but at prices that would have seemed like science-fiction just a few years ago.