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Streamer observation / question to those who know

I'm not sure I know how to phrase this post so I may ramble please bear with me. It seems that most the new DACs have "I2S" ports yet the higher end streamers usually don't (yet maybe???).  Yeah I know there's no standard and they can't even decide between HDMI and RJ45 plugs but a 12K N20 streamer doesn't even try.  It's already or almost obsolete.  AES/EBU is purported as the premium interface but it's usually limited to PCM: Up to 32-bit / 192 kHz; DSD: Up to DSD64 via DoP.  So does that mean everyone was wrong about USB? Is USB fixed now?  If so why is I2S so prevalent on the newer DACs, is that just marketing or do DAC manufacturers know something streamer manufactures don't?

Upscaling to DSD may be fad like MQA but some DAC manufactures seem to believe in it, going so far as basically putting two separate DACs into a single box and supporting up to DSD1024 and PCM up to 1.536MGHZ.  To perform that kind of on the fly conversion from flac to DSD takes a lot of CPU/GPU power but it should be possible with in a quiet box, with a linear power supply, an optimized OS and a I2S board for a lot less than 12K and at least supporting the current technology included in today's DACs.  An even cheaper solution would be forgoing the DSD1024 with a i7 fanless computer and a DCC add a linear power supply and for less than a quarter of the cost you should be able to reliably stream DSD 256 and probably DSD 512 thru I2S.

So,  What am I missing?  I'm not saying a high end streamer doesn't sound better than a dedicated PC (I haven't compared them) I just don't know what's in the box that makes it better that much better. With the limitations of its' processing power and interface should a high end streamer even be considered based on today's DACs?

128x128danager
mahler123
3,362 posts
 

To return to your OP, in the last paragraph you query whether a high end streamer can best a PC.  My answer, as someone who has compared them, is an unequivocal yes.  PCs simply aren’t optimized for sound reproduction.  They don’t have the power supply that dedicated streamers have, nor the quality of parts, and they isolate sound from the noisy environments that PCs live in.  Perhaps they might have less processing power-I don’t know if your assertion is correct- but all that processing power is dedicated to receiving a signal and passing it to a DAC.  It doesn’t have to worry about interfacing with a printer, or being able to do video processing, which takes a lot more firepower than audio

danager's avatar
danager OP
954 posts
 

Thank you

I seems that many have compared PCs to streamers and based on their experience streamers have come out ahead and I respect and don’t deny that. I don’t have that experience so I’m relying on the AGon community to share and you have and I do appreciate it. Just for clarification what level of PC did you try?

But (There’s always a but)

While it’s true unoptimized computers do have overhead that competes with resources but streamers bottom line, are still computers just specialized. There are optimized OS for today’s computers that minimizes the overhead. Today’s computers no longer have parallel or serial ports so printing is just a driver that sends signals over USB or Ethernet (a digital signal like sound) and no longer compete with the motherboard’s physical resources. As far as video goes it can actually benefit sound quality as there is software that offloads processing to the much faster video GPU to upsample to frequencies unobtainable by most of today’s streamers. Specialized PCIe USB or I2S cards exist that further isolate the signals. Computers have three distinct voltages 12v, 5v and 3V and their are linear power supplies that can feed the proper voltages to the motherboard. As far as isolation it’s even possible to feed a linear powered device a fiber optic Ethernet signal and it feeds the DAC completely isolating it from any electrical noise generated by the source. None of this is plug and play yet. It requires computer knowledge of both hardware, software and networking. From what I’ve read this all works with Roon which is known for its interface but setup is pretty advanced. I was really hoping to hear from the HQplayer or the Optical Rendu guys who ether succeeded or failed at this. Thanks for allowing me to put this out there and icomments are encouraged so please help me as I’m wanting to learn.

mahler123
3,362 posts
 

I am not denying that streamers are networking computers optimized to play audio, and encased in a box to make them look more like an audio component than a PC.

I used Apple Mac Minis, Apple Mac Books, and bog standard Dell laptops provided by my employer back when I was using computers as my streamers.

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