Point of higher priced streamer?


Hello,
Assuming I have separate DAC, and I just want to play songs from iPad by Airplay feature.
In this case, I need a streamer to receive music from my iPad -> DAC.

What’s the point of high price streamer? I’m bit surprised that some streamers are very high priced.
From my understanding, there should be no sound quality difference.
(Streaming reliability and build quality, I can see it but I do not see advantages in terms of sound quality.)

Am I missing something? If so, please share some wisdom.
128x128sangbro
Let me see if I understood this correctly.

On one end we have streaming services, Spotify,Todal, Qobuz and for simplification I’m counting Roon for this catefory as well. These service will take the individual tracks from their data location and apply some algorith that converts the original file for the appropriate quality needed for the streamer. Next thing is the streaming service itself, which basically cuts the track to datagrams, let’s say 5ms slices and wraps these to tcp protocol (seems to be protocol for atleast Spotify and Roon, don’t know if Tidal and Qobuz are using udp).

Now at this point there would be a steady flow of individual datagrams to the streamer. If any of the tcp packages would drop, the tcp stack in streamer software would just ask the ”server” Spotify, Roon to resend the package. As long as the datagrams are coming in fast enough network package loss shouldn’t affect the SG, but in a situation where the network delay is longer that the cache time of the streamer it’s forced to drop the datagram. Based on the error correction schema this might not be a problem, if for example 40ms of audio is distributed in 8 datagrams. Each datagram would overlap 5ms with the previous one, so loosing one would not affect the integrity of data. More robbust error correction means more bandwidth is needed, if I understood correctly typically these schemas would be applied dynamically.

Now the streamer has received enough datagrams to fulfull the cache to ”protect” the flow to the dac. On the streamer’s RJ45/Wifi receiver chip there is incoming flow of datagrams and at the same time as the same packets are pushed out through USB/spdif port using AES3 protocol. This most like the point where jitter and electrical noise would be interfiering the output signal of spdif for example. How the missing data in spdif flow would affect SG is not clear to me, maybe someone else could open this in more detail.

Now if I have roughly understood the whole flow correctly it’s quite easy to understand why one streamer - dac combination sounds better that other. 
How about streaming content with a video source. I think they drop packets if there is a problem in the transmission. However, dropped packets are just part of the the streaming quality issue. Actually not a big deal for me and I do not think this a big deal for most people. I am more interested in the issue of electrical noise that people bring up as a cause of a lot of problems in the streaming chain. 

A couple of posts above are saying that a Fibre optical cable is less of a benefit than an LPS on the streamer. Heck even ASR is saying that and they are only about measurements.
Maybe the differences I hear between my Pi/Digi+ SPDIF and M5 are related to the quality of the power supply used in the M5 vs the iFi switching power supply I use with the Pi; I don't know...   Using a Pi with the Allo DigiOne Signature SPDIF board and a good quality linear power supply to feed the clean side of the output would be a great comparison with my M5 or any more expensive streamer.

I've read various posts here and on audiophile style about reported improvements by replacing the internal Lumin U1 Mini power supply with an external SBooster.    The Hans Beekhuyzen Channel on YouTube has a lot of interesting videos/reviews about streamers and power supplies.

Once I recharge my audio funds I would like to try a linear power supply with the EtherREGEN.   When I had the RME ADI 2 FS DAC I was shopping external linear power supplies and Teddy Pardo, Paul Hynes, SBooster, Uptone UltraCap, and Farad were all on my radar.  I ended up selling the RME before I purchased one for comparison.   RME's opinion on replacing their stock supply with an upgraded linear supply can be read here: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=28734 ; it's about what you would expect, similar to this thread...
^^ That's a forum, I saw 2 posts by admin where he shows very little patience with the notion using a different power supply changes SQ. 
Some good info here on streaming.
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/how-to-optimize-digital-streaming-with-optical-fiber

I broke down and bought the UltraCap LPS 1.2 based on the comments here and the ASR links posted here. Let me see now if that was money well spent.

https://uptoneaudio.com/products/ultracap-lps-1-2?variant=6075727314979

The LPS-1.2 is a single output, 1.1-amp linear power supply intended for powering a wide range of audio and computer devices.  Examples include: UpTone's own ISO REGEN, the Sonore microRendu and ultraRendu, SOtM streamers, small DACs and headphone amps, USB>S/PDIF converters, specialty computer USB cards, SSDs, fibre media converters, PS Audio LANRover, SqueezeBox Touch, etc.

I was about to get the EtherREGEN but held off. I want to do a bit more research on this one to see if it worthwhile sound wise. I also want to see if it is possible to output from the EtherREGEN to multiple DACs or streamers in my system. I will have a Rendu streamer into 1 USB DAC and an Ethernet stream input with another DAC. Both connected to my preamp at the same time.