What works, what’s cost effective, and what is today’s best possible sound quality for lossless streaming spans a huge spectrum of hardware complexity, software optimizations, weight and cost. The zero’s and ones are exactly the same be it a system built around Raspberry Pie, a SOC, a i7 or dual scalable Xeon CPU’s with 20 cores.
What is different is the RF emissions collection, and how it effects the sound quality. Here are my takeaways, observed over the last 5 years, and independently verified by intense DIY professionals like Romaz.
It has long been observed that lower software execution latency helps improve SQ, and we find it is still very much the case today. Lower latency shortens the CPU active time, and CPU associated RF emissions. What high powered CPU’s bring to the table are faster thread execution times, less CPU busy time, and that noticeably increases SQ to levels that slower and less powerful CPU’s cannot match.
RF emissions in the Kilo to Gigahertz frequency bands which are emitted by the various clocks in digital gear can be attenuated by good shielding and grounding but what still gets through and then infiltrates in to the analog EM signal amplification environment results in an easy to identify audible signature. When carefully managed and shaped, these RF emissions can be SQ enhancing.
Digital equipment is as sensitive to mechanical vibrations as analog equipment. All crystal clock oscillators are vibration sensitive to an order of magnitude greater than their steady state frequency drift. Clock oscillators’ output signal voltages are also quite sensitive to power supply fluctuations. Overbuilt power supplies make their sonic presence heard in digital equipment.
Playing Streamed files does not require much CPU power, but the quantity of IP traffic going up and down comes with its SQ unhelpful sonic signature and the reason why the sonics of streaming are behind well implemented PCIe storage and RAM playback.
So while the size, complexity and cost of a high powered music server might seem to be over the top, the level of sonics one of these servers can deliver is not snake oil