There is a potential mechanism for noise transfer and this would be system dependent. I have my doubts, but the mechanism exists. An argument could be made about the impact of that noise on jitter in a clock on the DAC device. I find that argument unreliable and not supported by available measurements. Similarly, I find the argument about jitter in the Ethernet as an issue unreliable. All these things would be too easy to demonstrate. My spidey sense goes off then easily demonstrated things are not. Been in this hobby long enough that I don't trust what I thought I heard any more, proven myself wrong too many times. I am not about to start taking other people's words for it. Used to do that. Poorer for it.
Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?
The only value I see with a fiber optical cable is if you have a long long run.
All the noise coming into an optical fiber is preserved and comes out the other side. I guess there is a value in not creating more noise while it is traveling through the optical cable. But if it's a short run of two Feet then is it really worth it. Seems a well shielded Ethernet cable would do just as fine without all the hassle of converting to optical which is a pain in the ass.
I always thought there was value with optical but it seems they're really may not be. Maybe I'm wrong. It seems a switch likely produces a lot of noise and inserting an audio grade switch is very prudent and going optical really doesn't solve switch noise problem. The benefit of re-clocking offered by a decent switch to clean up the signal is worthwhile.
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@theaudiomaniac thanks for the reply. Indeed, there are alot of absolutes and alot of exceptions. I hear material sound quality differences and I am skeptical by nature. But what do I know, I enjoy tube amplification but my system is a digital only source. I hear differences in cable and it isn't subtle so I'm probably not going to be invited by Amir to opine on much. All the best... |
@theaudiomaniac you are saying you don’t have any more knowledge on the topic and therefore no one else does either. Good argument. like I have stated before, I know more about the topic that anyone on this forum, including yourself, until proven that it is not so. one thing you certainly did not was to dispute any absolutes, in fact you, yourself said that the forum is anti Audioscience… What you don’t call a reliability wrapper is up to you, UDP specifically states it leaves reliability to the higher level protocols. VoIP measures it for quality, gaming and gamers are obsessed with their “ping” there are controls. Neither requires that every packet is received, but have reliability safeguards to ensure a minimum level of performance. And you are wrong when you say it is a wrapper around UDP, it is on top of UDP. Also wrong when you say the purpose of a reliability wrapper is to manipulate the data, it is literally the opposite, to ensure data arrives intact. How much data? well that is up to each individual application accepted performance level. and finally, it is just flat out a lie that Roon did not support Tidal/Quboz before they switched to TCP. They most certainly did, and it is easily verifiable too. Which means they had to have a reliability wrapper on top of UDP to ensure DRM, proving you wrong again. in summary @theaudiomaniac , yes, you do have limited knowledge, and can’t even bother to do research. We can agree there.
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If I were the moderator I would remind you that certain standards of decorum and relevance should apply to posting here. I might even imply that your approach and apparent gloating was churlish or prickly at best. Since I am not the moderator, I will refrain.
You’ve made your point, most here could give a shyt how the data arrives, we accept it because we have few options to the contrary depending on cable providers. What we choose to do to the data once it arrives to our doorstep is where this conversation initiated. But again, I’m not the moderator so it isn’t my place to tell you any of the above. |
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