Any audiophile use computer (MacBook) as your audio streaming source?

And here we go....... again

If you search the internet you will find at least 1000 threads discussing this exact same question. You will find that they all contain the exact same information, in fact, some of the same people here are posting the same things over there.

One side side says there is a night and day difference in streamers. The other side says it makes absolutely no difference. A few people are in the middle

If you go to Audiophile Style you will find a group that has invested near $100,000 (yes one hundred thousand american dollars) in streaming computers, 10’s of $1000’s in cables, power supplies, clocks, reclockers for USB and ethernet and multiples of those. They also upsample everything to 16-32 X the base rate They swear it is all necessary to achieve the best.

others use a $100 Raspberry Pi and claim the same results

so here is the answer to your question... read it carefully

You will never find the answer here or on any forum. The ONLY way to determine the answer for YOU is for YOU to try it.

so all you all can just move along, nothing new to see here. There is NOTHING anybody can add to this conversation that isn't posted in 1000 other threads here and elsewhere

Adding a DDC can provide a better signal to a DAC, and even a DAC with a good clock benefits and sounds better by having to do less work to clean up the incoming signal.

I do use a DDC (Mutec MC3 + clock) and I do hear a small improvement, but the second part about why is purely a guess. You have no way to know why it sounds better.

What does "do less work to clean up the incoming signal" even mean? What work is being done?  The statement actually makes no sense.

 When a DDC sends a signal to a DAC that has reduced jitter and noise from the USB signal the DAC has much less processing to do.

.. "much less processing to do" is just like "do less work to clean up the incoming signal"

 The DAC is doing the exact same amount of processing whether the incoming signal has jitter or it doesn't. The DAC operates exactly the same either way. The DAC doesn't have a circuit that detects jitter or noise and then "does more work" when it detects it.

Again, I use a DDC so I'm not pushing back on the idea that they can improve the outcome, I'm just saying your explanations about how that happens make no sense. 

At the end of the day I realize my concerns don't really matter, how it sounds matters, but as someone with a background in electronics, it just bothers me when people offer explanations about how electronic circuits work when they really don't understand them. 

so I'll let it be

 there are plenty of references out there that will show DACs sound better when fed a higher quality signal with lower noise/jitter, which is largely what a DDC does.  Just because you (or I) don’t understand exactly why that is the case doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and the fact that both you and I (and scores of others here) have experienced positive benefits from adding a DDC is pretty darn good evidence that feeding a DAC a better signal has material benefits.  If it’s not because the DAC works/sounds better with a lower noise/jitter signal from the DDC they why else would that possibly be?

I completely agree with the first part, I said several times that I agree a DAC can sound better fed from a DDC

What I said was .... your conclusion that it does so because it doesn't have to work as hard or has to do less processing has no factual basis so stating that these are the reasons has no basis in fact.

I never had any problem with the conclusion that it sounds better. My problem is your statement about WHY it sounds better.

As you alluded to, it really doesn't matter why as long as it does, so why do you keep defending the reasons you stated when they are indefensible especially when you agree you don't know why?

the end. 

Ok, well fine then. If it’s not the better clocking and noise reduction that makes a DDC make a DAC sound better as both you and I agree that it does, then what exactly is it? Magic fairy dust??? C’mon man

so now a different story.. our back and forth has never been about the what ( better clocking and noise reduction) but about the why it works.

people like you are the main reason I rarely participate in these forums. You say something, then when you are called on it, you change your story. You ignore what you said before and act like you never said it.

Fact: You said the "processor doesn’t have to work as hard" and "has to do less processing."

Fact: I said I agree the DDC is effective, it is just that your "work less hard" explanation makes no sense..I said you can’t say what "work" the processor is doing or say what "less processing" means so your WHY it works makes no sense. Not that it doesn’t work.

Fact: Now, since you can’t defend your why, you change your story and focus on the what instead of the why throwing in "better clocking" and "noise reduction"

Now that you have thrown it it into the mix, I agree it is completely logical that better clocks and noise reduction may play a part. But you changed your story.  It still doesn’t validate your statement about less processing or less work for the DAC.

I never offered an explanation why because I don’t have one. I just agree that it works and know that your explanation made no sense.

So again, people like you are the main reason I rarely participate in these forums. You are incapable of saying "I was wrong" so you keep changing your story in an endless quest to avoid doing so.

Apologies to the rest of the group

It has been fun but you keep changing your story so......

Good Day

So switching to something that might be useful to the OP

IMHO asking a computer (Mac or Windows ) to be a streamer direct to the DAC is asking for sub par performance. If you ever look at all that is going on in the background (My Windows Pc is running 66 background processes at the moment) it makes sense that a device dedicated to the task might outperform it.

On the flip side, any DAC today is pulling info from the USB port as it needs it, so if it is processing that data optimally perhaps it makes no difference. All I can speak to is my experience, which is that the high end DACs I've used in my system (DCS, Mojo, EMM, and others) that had digital inputs, particularly AES,  they sounded better by using that rather than USB. I attribute that to more stable, less jitter, less noisy clocks in the reclocker, but that is just a guess. In any case, it sounds better to me.

So how do you get an AES signal. One way is a DCS or EMM bridge that takes an Ethernet in with an AES out. My current method is a Mutec MC3+ USB that takes USB in from an HQplayer NAA and converts it to AES, reclocking it in the process. It sounds more organic and natural into my Mojo DAC and as I recall that was true with the EMM I had too.  Again, that is my experience.

it is logical but I have no proof of this, that as long as the USB data coming from the NAA is not corrupted, once the Mutec re-clocks it then it shouldn't matter where it came from. Others will disagree but that's about as much effort and $$ as I want to put into it since I'm more a vinyl than digital guy anyway.

I also have the Mutec 10MHz as a reference for the MC3 but the jury is still out on whether or not that is a step up. I think it is but it is one of those deals it may take a while to soak in what all is happening to the sound.

so back to what I said in my initial response.. the only way for YOU to know is to try it in your system. One thing I will say is if you have a large % of your total $$ tied up in a streamer, you could probably get more improvement by spending it elsewhere (better speakers, better DAC, etc) and saving the streamer upgrade for the latter stages of your journey.

Soix, peace

I don't use any ,I don't stream...

very helpful, extremely valuable input for the OP to consider, thanks