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Apple TV Streaming Sound Quality vs Streamer?

I am looking for the weak link to improve sound quality.   Seems logical it is the Apple TV as a source.  Would a moderate streamer inside of $1500 make much of a difference when streaming Tidal and the like?  

Current Equipment:
Speaker: Dali Euphonia MS-4
AMP: Modwright KWA 150 SE
Preamp/ DAC: Peachtree Grand Integrated
Source: Tidal / Apple TV
puffbojie
don_c55
1,025 posts
 
MQA is 14.4khz just like CD

The quality deference is in the mastering and not anything else IMO.

Sometimes it sounds better, sometimes worse.

roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
Mastering from the original source is the most important factor in SQ! And with streaming and downloads the provenance is never certain, compared to LP's and CD's! Authenticity is given up for convenience! A bad bargain, indeed!
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
Stick to hard media like LP's and CD's for the best SQ!
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 
On most MQA contents my DAC shows 96 and sometimes 192 rates. And they do sound better than the same music when played using my CD player through the same DAC. The rest of the system is a constant.
So streaming can sound better than CD and in my system does most of the time.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

You could replace the ATV with another streamer, but it will have high jitter just like the ATV.

Jitter is the thing that you must reduce, the thing that most digital audio suffers from.

The Synchro-Mesh will reduce jitter to 8 psec and you can have 44.1, 48 or 96 for output, your choice. Most DAC’s sound best with 96.

Here are some jitter measurements, before and after the Synchro-Mesh:

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154310.0

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154408.0

There are no streamers that will deliver 8psec of jitter at the end of a coax cable. The only way to get there is the Synchro-Mesh.  Cheaper than buying another streamer.  If anything, get a Sonos Connect and reclock it with a Synchro-Mesh.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

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