Silly question. Everything matters at the audiophile level. Why would anyone go cheap on any part of an audiophile system. The way the OP is thinking makes me cringe about the cables he may be using or recommending to his friend.
Help settle a streaming argument!
This is a SQ argument and is as follows- I argue if you connect your streamer to an outboard DAC the streamer does not matter it’s just serving the music to the outboard DAC to do the work. Therefore, buy a basic streamer. The other is that you need to buy a top quality streamer and DAC to get great SQ.
I liken it to cd players or the more pretentious cd transport argument- if the intent is to connect to outboard DAC the cd player doesn’t matter the outboard DAC DOES!
features and functionality aside! Thoughts…..
- ...
- 137 posts total
@baylinor - your condescending answer will be dismissed! arrogance does not equate to knowledge or intelligence! |
p05129, It has been a while since I listened critically to streamers and the mode of transmission, but, I agree that Ethernet consistently outperformed asynchronous USB connection when I heard a comparison. While it does not seem to make sense that a streamer can make a whole lot of difference beyond a certain point of basic competence, it does matter. I have no idea why it is so, but, early on, I heard comparisons of the software managing streaming and NAS music files and some software truly sucked compared to others when it came to sound quality; how can that be? |
+ 1 to carlsbad2 I think the question is the core of the issue if I am to learn more about streamers and how to spend my money wisely. Lets remove the listener from the chain for the moment. I pose the questions that if the only variable in the chain is the streamer and each streamer under consideration is receiving the same digital file from the provider which it is then delivering to the DAC, What degradation can or is taking place within the streamer that the file received is not identical to the file delivered to the DAC? What makes the streamer the weaker link if the files are identical and if they are not identical what changed? |
- 137 posts total