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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
thyname's avatar
thyname
3,107 posts
 
That’s not what he said. Read it again, he said (verbatim): “ if connected via optical to a "decent" high performing DAC (e.g. Topping D50), it will outperform many higher-priced streamers”

I understand the usual rhetoric of your kin “everything sounds the same / no impact in SQ / no difference “, but saying “it OUTPERFORMS” many higher-priced streamers”, it is a bit of stretch. Based on what? On that ASR link? Or his own experience?

And, if a Topping D50 is “decent”, “well-designed”, “competent”, “high-performing”, then pretty much EVERY standalone DAC in the universe is such. But then again, this says nothing, as your only “contribution” in this site is about the virtues of a $2 (two American dollars) DAC 🎄🎈🎆😂
arafiq's avatar
arafiq
1,695 posts
 
I have lived with Apple TV, Chromecast, Node 2i, and Sonore Optical Rendu for many years. Still own all four. And I've gotten to know all four pieces of equipment over a much longer period of time, instead of rushed A/B comparisons. My source is also Roon, and Chromecast is nowhere near the quality of Sonore or Node 2i. Period.

I guess it's hard for some to believe that staring at measurement graphs is not a good indictor of digital playback. As I've said before, there is no compression algorithm for actual listening.
djones51
4,947 posts
 
I've never used the Chromecast the cheapest I have is a raspberry pi4. As a roon endpoint it's indistinguishable from streamers I've had costing a lot more. I actually listen, with my ears, not my eyes. If your experience is not listening blind then it's flawed and useless except as a control for why we need to listen blind. Measurements are good to get a basic idea, I've never chosen a component based on measurements alone. 
audio2design
1,351 posts
 
If the streamer is optically isolated USB, I would love to hear in your own words what a "better cleaner data packet" is.

No the pointnis that more powerful streamers present the dac with a better cleaner data packet which produces audible improvements

rhg88
45 posts
 
LOL!!! This is very funny. I totally missed this part. Hilarious! Especially if “backed” by the world famous & renowned ASR. How do you know? Or you just KNOW?

Please read the results  of the ASR tests of Roon's implementation of Chromecast Audio (CA) streaming, which are backed by actual experimental data.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-chromecast-aud...

Perhaps you don't understand the plots. Here are the conclusions:

“1. The CAST audio functionality of Google Chrome is horrid. There is no excuse for it to be butchering even simple 16-bit signals as it did. While audibly it is not as dire as it looks, I still would avoid it if you can.

2. Roon's implementation of Chromecast streaming is superb. It is bit accurate up to 24 bits and 48 kHz that I tested. Congratulations to Roon for job well done. I assume they received support from Google to implement it as the protocol otherwise is not open to the public.

3. The Chromecast output has more jitter than an audiophile/instrument grade Toslink output. This is evident when used with low quality DACs like Schiit Modi 2 Uber.

4. Using a well-designed Dac like the Topping D50, there is no difference at all between Toslink from Chromecast or higher fidelity sources. All the jitter is filtered out resulting in the performance of the DAC itself being the limit.

#4 is a great news here. It means that if you have a good DAC and use Roon, you can turn your DAC into a streamer/renderer using the Chromecast Audio. For just $35, that is a superb addition.  As such, the combination of Roon and Chromecase audio is highly recommended!”

By the way, there are multiple other sources that praise the CA as an excellent device for getting into streaming, for example,

http://https//www.whathifi.com/us/google/chromecast-audio/review

and specifically as a Roon streamer, for example:

http://https//community.roonlabs.com/t/chromecast-audio-sound-quality/45972

Forgive me for paying more attention to actual experimental data than to hearsay opinions, no matter how many LOLs expressions are used  to stress these opinions.

Paying $50 bucks to try out whether I like Roon or not, instead of spending several hundreds  of dollars on other streamers with doubtful performance improvements over the CA, such as the SOtM SMS-200 and the Sonore microRendu Streamers, makes perfect sense to me.

If you look at the J-tests for both the the SOtM SMS-200 and the Sonore microRendu Streamers, which are considerably more expensive than the CA, you can see that their noise performance degrades considerably if you use them with their stock switching power supplies. 

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/measurements-of-sonore-microrendu-streamer.577/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/measurements-and-review-of-sotm-sms-200-network-player.1846/

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