BlueSound or Innuos better than a Touch?

Hi Audiophile chaps,

A couple of months ago, I have converted an audiophile friend of mine to Squeezebox.

He has the following equipment:

- AMP: YBA ligne2 Alpha high current
- Speakers: B&W CM9
- DAC: TEAC UD 501
- expensive cables :-)
- LMS on Pi4 wired on Network
- SB Touch on Wifi that is connected to the DAC via Coax.

Recently he has contacted a high-end Hifi shop to ask what he should be upgrading in order to have an even better sound quality. The owner was clear: for him the weakest point from his set up was LMS and the Touch.

For him, a good streamer would bring a huge quality improvement even if connected digitally to an external DAC.

He told him to either buy a Bluesound Node 2i (with or without the Teac DAC) or move to an Innuos Zen Mini mk3 (with LMS or Roon) that could be equipped with an external powersupply.


I am not sure I understand why LMS/Touch connected to a DAC or any other solutions to the same DAC could be better: at the end of the day, that's the DAC who will do the job, isn't it?

Any recommendation I could give to my friend?

Cheers!