2. digital
  3. 190027-170711

why expensive streamers

@soix and others

I am unclear about the effect on sound of streamers (prior to getting to the dac). Audio (even hi-res) has so little information content relative to the mega and giga bit communication and processing speeds (bandwidth, BW) and cheap buffering supported by modern electronics that it seems that any relatively cheap piece of electronics would never lose an audio bit. 

Here is why. Because of the huge amount of BW relative to the BW needs of audio, you can send the same audio chunk 100 times and use a bit checking algorithm (they call this "check sum") to make sure just one of these sets is correct. With this approach you would be assured that the correct bits would be transfered. This high accuracy rate would mean perfect audio bit transfer. 

What am I missing? Why are people spending 1000's on streamers?

thx

 

128x128delmatae
kairosman's avatar
kairosman
273 posts
 

You go to Munich and visit the $1M rooms for the oligarchs and what do you see for streamers?

Mostly Aurender at around $25K, not saying Aurender is the best, I'm just saying $25K is the benchmark ie at that end of the market streamers are seen as important in the chain.

Even in the $150K system rooms the streamers are minimum $10K, so yeah manufacturers are telling you when they are demoing their gear, be they speaker or amp manufacturers, that streamers matter.

In my system I use the Lumin P1/L2 combo and yes the fiber optic I/O makes for a very easily heard sonic upgrade versus ethernet LAN.

Apropos don't let the "makes zero difference" crowd tell you otherwise.

jssmith
309 posts
 

You're not missing anything. This coming from a former software engineer with network experience. I think we're at a point where the last gasp of the marketeers is down to clocking (jitter), but as you point out the amount of information is not sufficient to cause a problem as jitter measurements are always way under the human capability to hear them. Marketing is a very powerful tool.

wqgq_641
59 posts
 

Can someone explain what a 432EVO does to recordings on original instruments tuned to 415hz eg Academy of Ancient Music? Does it assume they are tuned to 440 and retune them even lower? Or is it smart enough to tell the difference? Thanks.

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,549 posts
 

I had a BS Node. It sounded good.I changed the power supply and it sounded better.  I added an external DAC and it sounded still better.  I now have an Arunder and it sounds even better.

This is why people get more expensive streamers,  better sound.

hhudo's avatar
hhudo
13 posts
 

Component with probably lowest sonic benefits, with ridiculous price ladder. 

Its basically a low noise ARM based computer with off the shelf components, decent power supply and variant of some Linux OS. Cheap to manufacture, crazy high profit margins.

Going from cheap PC to few hundred $ gives small sonic benefits, but then next step is 2-3k$ streamer, where i bet 95$ people wouldn't pass blind A/B test. 

I tried few cheap and expensive ones, but can't say expensive ones are worth the money, not even close, i would rather invest that in amp, speakers, room treatment. 
 

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