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
I think you misunderstood me @cleeds I wasn’t talking about A specific service. I was talking about streaming in general, since there was so much confusion here. I was actually proving the exact same bit-perfect point but had to go off to a tangent for what to do with not bit perfect transmissions. But please call me silly if it makes you feel any better 😂 |
Thanks again Jerry @carlsbad2 |
@mdalton - I agree that it would be possible to measure differences between streamers in a test environment that includes a known source and known DAC. But this isn’t really measuring the streamer - it’s measuring the combined system. This could still be useful, but I’m not sure how relevant the information would be for other sources and other DACs. Still, I’d love to see someone do this kind of testing. But I think for this to be broadly meaningful, a variety of sources (and source content) and a variety of DACs would need to be used, and then a concerted effort made to correlate the resulting measurements with the way the combination sounds. All possible, of course, but probably not very practical. @carlsbad2 - I assume you are talking about data errors between the streamer and the DAC. As other’s have mentioned, the data from the streaming servers (whether across the internet from the likes of Qobuz or from a local server) is transferred to the streamer using the TCP/IP protocol which will fix any data errors. If the connection is so flawed that this is not possible, the music will skip or stop playing. No streamer that I am aware of will attempt to fix network data errors. It is possible to have data errors internal to the streamer or between the streamer and the DAC since these signals (I2S, AES, SPDIF, Toslink) do not include any error detection (let alone correction). USB does include error detection, but no error correction for Isochronous audio data transmission. I doubt very much that any decent streamer has data corruption problems within the streamer itself, but I do think it is possible that data errors could occur between the streamer and DAC, particularly if the streamer output connection has high signal noise, if long or poorly shielded cables are used, and/or if there is a lot of EMI/RFI present in the environment where the system is located. I still believe that the larger difference between streamers is caused by timing issues and electrical noise transmitted to the DAC, but this is speculation on my part. |
@delmatae I felt the same as you give my technical background. Same exact data should be delivered to the DAC. I went from a Node to an N150 and it was easily noticeable and an improvement. Wife picked out in blind tests. I kept the N150. My expectations that it would be the same sound were wrong. It is true that you have to have a system resolving enough to present the differences and sufficient hearing to detect it - but I did and I don’t have golden ears. Based on what I know, it is my opinion that it reduces noise introduced into the DAC, perhaps due to the linear power supply or other factors. Again, small noise on a digital signal should not matter - but the improvement in sound is typical of what I have experienced with less electrical noise in the chain. I spent about 5% of my system cost on my streamer. I bought Aurender because my buddy goes to the audio shows and said he mostly sees Aurender’s being used. I figured those guys know best. |
I am curious at what point a typical digital signal is subject to being processed, changed, or influenced by noise as it travels from a streaming service via modem/router through to the DAC? How about in the case of the following digital streaming set-up:
Obviously the DAC converts the digital signal from digital to analog but which of the other preceding steps has a significant impact on the digital signal? |
