Higher End DACs

@david_ten 

thanks for the real world check on format and usage - appreciate it!

@audiotroy 

Sorry, i missed one of your recent replies.  Thank you for your reminder about T+A intention for the MQA update.

just out of curiosity - have they definitively confirmed it is coming?  Another poster I think had provided an email reply from them that I thought made it sound more vague (I will have to look back and see).

also, a general question - are software updates always limited to the first MQA unfold only and if you want the subsequent full MQA unfolding it would require a hardware upgrade? Or does the ability of a software upgrade to give a full MQA compatibility depend on the DAC implementation?

Does T+A’s implementation allow for full MQA thru just a software upgrade?

Thanks for righting the ship folks. And +1 on the Star trek reference kren.

RF isolation is needed to determine DAC differences. That is, RF noise in signal, power or radiated thru free air affects how a DAC sounds. 
Regards xtreme servers ...well if the output is optical and the server is 100% RF isolated from the DAC, they sound the same as a $100 raspberry Pi. Exact same.
Im in the Toronto area and able to plainly demonstrate this.

@dmance,

Thanks for chiming in...some of us are well aware of the benefits of isolating RF noise from the streamer. It has been discussed in the following thread to an extent, 

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/network-switches

Feel free to add your feedback there or start a new thread. I think this very topic of noise isolation deserves a dedicated thread and we can possibly learn and educate ourselves from your experience.

@lalitk
Thanks. I will (gingerly) post on that thread. I am going to turn this industry on its head so i need to be careful. The issue of RF noise (basically any EM energy above the audio band) is grossly under-appreciated as being detrimental to ultimate sound from a DAC. There is so much misinformation about tweaks to the upstream digital chain. Servers, cables, power supplies, switches, reclockers, etc. - all do nothing to the fidelity of the digital stream to the DAC. It’s always 100% perfect. The bugaboo of jitter is a 1990’s issue - modern DACs are impervious with double-buffers and separately clocked outputs.
It may be incredulous to many (most) that digital electronics radiate RF noise across meters of open air or via galvanic signal paths or AC mains to enter a DAC to affect the final D/A stage through perturbations in clocking or reference voltages. So all those tweaks ...all they do is change the radiated emissions profile; modulating the RF correlation to become manifest as subtle deviations in a DACs output waveform timing and amplitude: hence staging, timbre, detail.
I wanted a solution not a partial fix so I solved this for myself (and its a commercial Audiowise product) by putting my entire digital chain inside an RF isolation chamber (a 90dB attenuation Faraday cage) with only optical allowed in/out. Bingo - zero audible difference between a Raspberry Pi, an Intel NUC or an ’audiophile’ server. No difference between a $5 USB cable or a $500 one. No difference between using a factory switch-mode power supply or a $1500 LPS. When all these tweaks are contained inside a RF chamber, no RF noise escapes and the DAC always sounds its best (as it was designed).