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
Streaming is not a new technology. I for one have been streaming since about 2004 (starting with the original Yamaha Musiccast system). Moreover, the fundamental job of the streamer, moving a data stream from server to dac, is rather simple. And sorry to be a skipping record, but even most high $ streamer proponents agree it’s just about jitter and other noise. So measure it! Btw, I volunteer for the reassembler chamber… |
@mdalton I wasn't talking about losing or dropping packets and the tech used to ensure it all gets there. I was talking about noise creeping into the many places it can from sender to receiver and that it can corrupt what can be heard. The analogy of the CDP should have made that clear, having such short distances being all handled internally. Apologies if I wasn't clear on that. On another note, please check for those errant flies before volunteering. All the best,
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@grislybutter What I meant was from the source (Spotify, Quoboz, Tidal, Apple, etc.) to the endpoint: you and your system. Those here who have/use local files on their own storage they stream from have commented on how much better it sounds compared to some online sources, going even further to say it sounds even better on their CDPs but it's getting really close to practically indistinguishable nowadays. All the best, |
