Goodbye Sonos, hello ????

Tboooe,

With wireless, sounds like something is missing, not as continuous, coherent, and vivid. In theory if the buffer is big enough, it shouldn't be a problem, but ...

IE: Watching a video in a browser, flash player buffers data to avoid interruption when play begins. When buffer runs out whether slow server, bad connection ... , play stops and re-buffers before start again.

Take it one step further, if buffers whole track or cd before play, essentially changed loading data into memory from a synchronize to asynchronize operation which is much simpler to implement. No need for over priced transports, external clocks ... Abstract out the interface and only requirement is loading data before play.

Got my AQ ethernet cable and it's a major improvement over HD cable. Similar going from wireless to wired +1.

Michael Fremer interview .

There are several Servers that would fill your needs. The W4S units, Sonore, Resoulution Audio,Bryston.. these are all stand alone, with a seperate DAC needed.. I use a PS Audio PWD MKII, and either a Cullen Modded Sonos, or The PS Audio Bridge.. The Bridge sounds great but is a bit wonky..

Let's try Michael Fremer interview link again.

Michael Fremer Interview

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/analogplanet-editor-appears-scott-wikinsons-home-theater-geeks-podcast-0

I can confirm knghifi's findings re: wireless and wired...

First - the wired does not suffer from breaks in the stream - my wireless was bad for that - too many other routers in the neighbourhood according to apple support.

Second, the wired is much smoother in the highs like violins and sibilance

Don't forget - if the dac is missing a sample - it will try to insert the next best interpolated value based on valid adjacent samples. Only when too many adjacent samples are missing will a break in the audio signal occur. Somewhere between an audible break and a perfect stream you have a dac creating an audio signal that contains distortion.

High frequencies are more difficult to rebuild because there are fewer samples at high frequencies - e.g. on a 44Khz sample source, if you miss 2 samples you cannot rebuild a 20kHz audio signal perfectly.

I noticed a significant improvement in the violins on every orchestral piece I have.

Not only does it sound smoother, but the placement of instruments in the sound stages became much more precise and spacious

Your cables contribute to streaming issues also - I have tried a few optical and USB cables and found that DH Labs provide the best quality to date - so I can see why rolling quality network cables may also prove beneficial - although, if they also suffered from poor tranmission then it might take me several attempts to send this note, so I'm not sold on this right now, but when I have time to investigate it might bring some more enlightenment :-)

Knghifi

http://meicord.de/index.php?id=82&L=3