Streaming, Getting the Signal, Then What?

PS Audio is good stuff. There is much better, and if you have “much better”, there is always something better than what you have. Fact of life. As Stephen Stills once sang, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”.

The PS Audio AirLens has galvanic isolation. Any network noise stops there.

A network switch is a 1 to many extender. Think of an AC outlet. Two cords are already plugged in and you want a third or fourth. What to do? You get a 1 to 3 outlet block (or corded extension). Switches simple give you more outlets for hardwired LANs. I have 81 devices on my home network. Most are WiFi, with 21 devices hardwired (my music streamer and movie server (Kaleidescape) being two of the 21 hardwired devices.

Streaming is digital. Like anything digital, it’s either on or off. If there is so much noise on the cable, then the modem may not be able to lock onto the signal, resulting in drops. Assuming the internet is stable, the AirLens or other streamers translate internet into digital out, which are not the same. How that is done is where you may begin to hear a difference in quality. However, it’s still a bunch of 1’s and 0’s after translation.

Now the DAC becomes important. This is the guy with the most sonic signature. How the input is delivered is important. PS Audio has chosen I2S to deliver the digital to the DAC for reasons they explain and believe to be best. Read/watch about the theory behind I2S and formulate your own opinion.

If using COAX (SPDIF) then issues can and arise. Jitter is the most detrimental to sound quality. How that is managed and mitigated in the DAC determines the quality of the analog sent to the speakers.

My experience with networking and audio:

I began with networking in 1983, when Novell was nearly the only game in town.

For most, understanding the two basic components of a network is important. Know what the following do: a) Modem b) Router. It’s also good to know what a switch is, managed or unmanaged. What comes out of a router is a LAN cable and WiFi.

Understand that a streamer connects you, the person, to a source somewhere. It works similar to tuning in a radio station. Be it Qobuz, Internet radio, or a local NAS device. It then organizes this connection into what we humans understand, music, labeled and named. Once we have the source material and it’s now in digital format, it still needs a DAC.

I built my current audio system with digital as the predominant front end source. I use a dCS Network Bridge. This is my streamer, an “AirLens” equivalent. This has the option to be externally clocked. I use a dCS Rossini Master Clock on the Network Bridge.

The output of the Network Bridge has a couple of options, and I use SPDIF.

Because I wanted to spin the occasional silver disc, CD or SACD, I decided upon the Esoteric K-01Xs. It’s a fine disc machine, but also a great standalone DAC.

The Esoteric has the option to be clocked, which it is with an Esoteric G-05 Master Clock. The difference without and with a master clock is not subtle. Having a master clock on a great DAC is stunning.

So, for the PS Audio music lover that asked the question: what to do to better his investment, I echo the comment: look at equipment that is downstream from the AirLens. Improving the audio chain from the DAC to the speakers will yield the greatest improvement.

The two main reasons to use your own router are cost and security. Internet providers tend to charge you a monthly rental fee which you can avoid by having your own equipment.

The other is security. Having your own router prevents a provider installed backdoor being used to get into your network. The number of times magic passwords have gotten into the wild is not zero, so is the number of times vendors have allowed zero-day exploits to go unpatched. .

There’s also the matter of features. For instance, if you wanted to use a mesh aware router, Wifi 7, etc.

Just make sure to set your router to auto-update to ensure any future security holes are patched and you’ll be fine.

Right now the bargains in Wifi routers are Wifi 6 capable unit which are being discounted now that Wifi 7 is out.  They'll serve you well for many years.

Keep your I2s connection as it is the best sounding connection for my streamer. I used to use USB but realized my CD transport connected with I2s sounded a hair less grainy. So I switch the transport to AES and used the I2s port for the streamer. Problem solved, they are now both on par. Everybody has an opinion and it is well represented here. I also like the cleaning the ethernet feed part. I use an optical isolation bundle with LPS into an ethernet switch before the streamer. I also use a master clock to time the switch, DDC and DAC. Everything matters is an expensive fact I have come to accept. Of course the choice of cables matters greatly, but that's another discussion that will take this one further into the weeds. Keep an open mind and experiment if you can. I am 70 also. Enjoy the journey.

Lots of the usual advice here. Is their anything about the current system that bothers you or makes you think you could or should do better?

Welcome to the rabbit hole of streaming. At least ten years into streaming, experimenting with so many devices and it continues to this day. In general, every single link in chain important, noise introduced at any point in chain is a loss one can never get back, clocking equally important. So, it begins with internet provider/speed (stability here) all the way through dac. As for guiding one as to specific solutions, look at all the advice given in this short thread, I'm sure much more to come. So many devices, so many opinions, where does one begin! I've gone down the road of experiential learning, some fails, some wins, still learning. Most recent experimentation is attempting to determine what is best input for dac, usb or I2S, I fully expect a unique outcome based on what dac used. Unique implementation of common technologies is replete in streaming and it goes on and on.