Customer Jody Armour's system uses a tube/solid-state hybrid setup to drive Klipsch Jubilees.
Streaming digital audio, whether over Wi-Fi or cable, is better than ever.
Last week, we shared the video of Jody Armour's amazing system featuring Klipsch Jubilees driven by a mix of tube and solid-state amplification. With all that exciting hardware, we didn't have a chance to focus on a little jewel in his source equipment, the Eversolo T8 streamer.
Using a streamer allows Jody to experiment with different external DACs in a hunt for his favorite sound. Eversolo offers a richly featured product that's under $1,500, yet adheres to solid hi-fi engineering principles such as a silent linear power supply, femto-clocks, and isolated outputs. The T8's flexibility makes it the ideal streamer for a range of DACs, and once Jody has settled on his favorite, the T8 would be a worthy match for DACs up to and a little beyond its price point. (More expensive DACs would shine when matched with higher end streamers from Lumin or Aurender.)
As a new product from a cutting-edge brand, the features of the Eversolo T8 give us a good sense of what to expect from a streamer today.
Eversolo T8 hero shot at Upscale Audio
The rear panel of the Eversolo T8 streamer gives us an overview of streaming in 2026.
The Rear Panel Tour
The Eversolo T8 offers exotic features such as room correction and parametric EQ, but connections are everything. With the exception of a clock input (found on higher end digital products), the T8 gives us a good idea of what to expect from streamers today.
SFP
The SFP port is the first input after the IEC power connector in the image above. A Small Form-factor Pluggable port allows different networking modules to be connected, and the current big upgrade is to use fiber-optic data cables instead of copper Ethernet cables. A fiber-optic cable makes it impossible for electrical and RF noise to be conducted straight into your audio system, either interfering with the digital signal, or hitting a DAC stage and adding noise to the analog signal.
Ken Davis, our sales manager, changed from copper data cable to fiber-optic in his home system and described it as one of the biggest upgrades he's ever made.
Gigabit LAN
Nothing new there, but if you do use it, consider getting an audio-grade network switch to keep noise out of the system. Audio-grade Ethernet cable absolutely makes a difference, too.
USB
Audio USB is better than ever, but keep in mind it's an inherently noisy high-speed data protocol, and needs a lot of work to get it quiet enough for audio. Notice that Eversolo offers an isolated USB audio out, giving your USB DAC a clean high-res signal.
AES/EBU
While there's always an "it depends on the specific brand" clause, the balanced SPDIF signal that's AES/EBU tends to be the best choice. Get a good XLR cable and enjoy a clean sound that doesn't lose weight and density.
Optical
Optical technically isolates from cable-borne noise, but don't forget that you have a high-frequency optical/electrical converter on each end of the cable. As a result, TOSLINK can have high levels of jitter and is better suited for TV and game sound rather than a critical hi-fi signal.
Coaxial
The original flavor digital signal. Use a good digital audio cable and enjoy the musicality of the SPDIF signal, bettered only by the best AES implementations, where the balanced signal might have more air and microdetail.
I2S
'I Squared S' is a circuit-board-level protocol that is used to transfer audio between chips. Someone had the idea to offer it as an input, thereby bypassing all "translation" and letting circuits talk to each other in their native tongue. Notably, the clock in an I2S setup is on its own conductor, eliminating the clock-recovery process. Whether I2S sounds better than the other protocols depends heavily on the specific DAC-streamer combination and implementation in the DAC.
Because I2S isn't designed for cables, it has no standard cable or pinout. Luckily, PS Audio popularized I2S over HDMI cables, so HDMI connectors and cables have become an informal I2S standard. Pin assignments can still differ by brand, which is why I2S-capable streamers, including the T8, offer different pin settings to match your DAC.
The Final Play
Paired with components from a similar price range, the Eversolo T8 is a very worthy forever streamer. However, Jody Armour, the customer with the Klipsch Jubilee system, is on a journey, and for him, the T8 is an excellent stepping stone into the world of streaming audio. As with every "separates vs. integrated" argument, he may well find that a one-box streaming DAC from Lumin or Aurender is better. But our favorite thing about separating streamer and DAC is that you now have two upgrade paths. You can keep the interface you like, and change DACs. Or, once you have a DAC you like, you can upgrade the streamer, discovering just how much even an all-digital source can affect the sound.