Why are digital streaming equipment manufacturers refusing to answer me?

@welcher This is a nice explanation of file data transfer. How about streaming, such as TIDAL, TV sound, etc.. You cannot go back and retransmit so there must be some occasional loss or imperfections. For music I assume it is not as catastrophic as it is for data files.

Your statement on fibre not making any difference in sound quality is challenged by products like the Sonore Optical Rendu. Their claim to fame is that the fibre cannot transmit any analog noise that exists in some level with Ethernet (maybe also USB). Thus without fibre, analog noise can get into the DAC.

@milalis I was going to buy a Sonore Optical Rendu today but changed my mind and will get a DAC with built-in streaming for occasionally used  bedroom instead (Black Friday sales). I am of the opinion that streaming with fibre levels the playing field. Using a noisy computer is also not a problem with fibre in the streaming chain. My current streaming, a microRendu, is more than good enough. So today, a second DAC will get me more short term joy but going fibre in the main rig is the long term plan for that final streaming solution.

yyzsantabarbara,

Depending on the protocol / app, most audio over ethernet will retry, and most buffer to give time for retry.  If streaming locally, odds are you almost never need retry.

Audio2design, You're right - that's probably what he was talking about, otherwise it doesn't make any sense.  He says "My system uses fiber optic cables. These go all the way to the dac", hoping that optical connection, shielding DAC from electrical noise, makes incoming music always the same.  It is not why it is the same.  Streamed music doesn't come in real time.  It is just plain data that is pre-buffered.  As long as it is the same data in the same format everything depends on the hardware that creates S/Pdif stream/timing (and I assumed he uses different hardware for different providers).  What makes different streaming providers sound the same is the fact that they send data only. Asking them why it sounds the same (with the same hardware and the DAC) is like asking different bookstores why the same book looks the same.

It should sound the same, assuming same internet provider and hardware, same data, same data format, same streaming hardware, same DAC etc.  "Should", because there might be something else that I'm forgetting.

I looked at Toshiba Toslink drivers.  There are some, perhaps older generation, that go only to about 5 Mbit/s, but they have newer drivers that go over 100Mbit/s.  Such Toslink devices should suffer less from the system noise.  Jitter induced by slow transition time and noise at the receiver's (DAC) end would be reduced as well.

As the study of psychoacoustics evolves, it is becoming abundantly clear that A/B tests will become irrelevant. 

@glupson

i have no affiliation or specific knowledge of thyname, or most other folks who post here

but when i think someone is trolling (not thyname, but someone thyname is pointing out):

-- i click their username and then check ’details’... one can then see when they joined, how many posts they have started or responded to since joining
-- one can also see if they posted info on their own system, and/or pictures of their listening room
-- finally, one can click ’marketplace feedback’ on the profile page ... and see what their track record is trading on the a-gon main equipment site - how many transactions over time, how many buys and sells, comments/feedback etc etc -- this is most important, a measure of the member's history, 'realness' and reputation not as a poster, but as a real person buying and selling equipment, with their real identity revealed to those they transact with

trolls often have

-- a very recent join date
-- a very large number of posts since joining (then you click on those posts, they are argumentative or instigating in nature...)
-- no info on their system
-- no track record whatsoever on the marketplace