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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
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
And the only way that I may try is a Synrcho-Mesh for low jitter, but nothing will make it as good as HDMI/optical, because the lower a bandwidth/upsampling still be presented.

HDMI is not hi-res, but Toslink can be depending on the source.  Not sure what you are saying here.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

jeenam
131 posts
 
audioengr | steve

Why do you say FLAC will never sound as good as WAV? My understanding is FLAC is 100% lossless. If a device were to decompress the FLAC input and place into a memory buffer which then feeds a DAC, shouldn't FLAC sound as good?

And regarding ethernet, it would seem the fix to all of this crap with sync/async would be to standardize on a protocol for audio that is similar to TCP/IP in that it features error correction built-in which feeds into a memory buffer (memory is cheap nowadays) which would then feed the DAC section. I have no idea why the audio community hasn't figured this out already.
puffbojie OP
115 posts
 
Since adding the Benchmark Dac, I really enjoy the added detail but it seems to be a little brash in my system or at least to what I’m used to.  Would the synchro mesh mellow it out a little?  Or am I better off getting a more laid back dac? If so what are some good ones in the 1-2k used market?
nicholass
4 posts
 
HDMI is not hi-res, but Toslink can be depending on the source. Not sure what you are saying here.
Steve, what means "HDMI is not hi-res"? HDMI 1.3 by its spec is a Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream compatible if devices support it. And even if we suggest that HDMI doesn't pass a bitstream hi-res signal, but using it instead of ATV's AirPlay with 16/44.1(-->48) is a huuuge difference, even for my non-perfect ears. And the signal is already PCM/88.2 on AV.

I'm also sorry if I speak incorrect details here, please correct me.
jeenam
131 posts
 
Benchmark DACs are known to be razor sharp. You're better off replacing it with something else, such as a NAD M51, or something from Chord.
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