Why dont more standalone DACs come with ethernet???

@treebeard1

I completely understand, the terminology is definitely confusing and different vendors make it more complex by adding their spin on the terms.

Based upon your use case, and the fact that you already have a great DAC/streamer, the Innuos probably wouldn't be rewarding for you. 

So its clear that many are unclear about the transition from an ethernet signal as it makes its way to a dac, including me.

this is important to understand, for me at least.

i guess an ethernet signal requires a transformation before being allowed into a dac via usb cable.

what happens here? Seems a network player without dac is whats needed, but exactly what does it do? Mostly rendering? And i guess as tom cruise said, ‘there is no substitute’.

so is a network player a renderer?

The internet transports packeted data. Digital words made up of digits that have address information and sequence numbers so they can be transmitted through the internet and reassembled at the user site. They need to be received and translated. The translation usually occurs in a PC, phone, or iPad. The packeted data can be a email, photo, or music file.

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Before the data can be used... to produce an email or music... it has to be translated into a bitstream and then create a file.. if a email or music file. Since it is not practical to wait to receive a whole file and then play it for music and home theaters the process of conversion from internet packets to a stream of bits that a computer (or “streamer”) can translate has been made to work in real time. This is a stream of bits that can be passed on to a Digital to Analog (DAC) converter to converted to an analog signal that can be amplified and used to drive analog speakers.
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So, Ethernet / packetized data has to be converted to a bit stream before it can be converted to an analog signal. The streamer function can be in a PC, iPhone, laptop, or a high quality device called a music streamer. The output can be handled inside the device and passed on to the DAC in the PC, or iPhone, or it can be passed by a digital connection to an external DAC via USB, SP/DIF, or optical connection. This is a timed bit stream... not asynchronous packets.


I hope this helps.

@jumia

i guess an ethernet signal requires a transformation before being allowed into a dac via usb cable.

Maybe you will take this path if your ethernet in plugged into a computer or server which is connected to a DAC via USB.  However, many DACs take ethernet direct and there is no need for USB unless you want to connect another source with a USB output.  Ethernet and USB are both digital so there is no conversion between the two. The only thing that changes is the protocol that each technology is bound to.   

Brilliant reply, last paragraph key.

so bit stream conversion necessary before reaching the dac.  
A network player does this.  Dont want a streamer as it comes with lots of extra stuff i dont want.  

What about the rendering process, related to bit stream conversion?

thanks so much