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

@cleeds   every time I go to a nearby dealer, they point to the "No Loitering" sign and lock the door.

... every time I go to a nearby dealer, they point to the "No Loitering" sign and lock the door ...

You must have treated him very badly. I can only hope you learned from the experience.

If we focus purely on the 1's and 0's arriving at the DAC in the correct, unmolested sequence then we can relax as all streamers will sound the same; all we then need to do is pick the streamer with an app/user interface which we like most.

Unfortunately, streamers also incorporate clocks so the sound quality they help produce may be affected by there being more or less jitter.

Unfortunately, streamers vary in the amount of noise they generate or pick up and this noise reaching the analog(ue) parts of the DAC will also affect sound quality.

If noise wasn't a thing and jitter wasn't a thing, all streamers would sound the same.  Unless I've missed something, and I'm sure someone will be along shortly to politely enlighten me if so...

@nigeltheflash I am sorry I am slow and thick. This is too abstract for me. And let's just focus on the "noise". 

Noise from where? The machine noise? Noise in the signal?

The signal comes from a server. Travels through a lot a steps, finally arrives to a streamer. Does the streamer add noise? Or it knows how to remove the noise?

And a good streamer sends "clear" signal to the DAC?

Sorry, feel free to ignore me. Just trying to understand.