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


I rarely see any audiophile talking about streaming audio digital sources from a computer. I understand MacBook can accept native lossless formats form all the various platforms, and it can store unlimited music files in any format, so supposedly it’s the best source, and the digital file is the most purest before it’s fed to the dac. Anyone compared the sound quality of computer vs other audio streamer? 

randywong

You can use a computer but a good streamer with a dedicated LPS power supply ,and upgrade the signal using a ddc or reclocker ,this too applies to streamers  it takes the digital signal ,holds it in a buffer then uses a much higher grade clock and filtering to create a much more pristine signal to your dac ,,

another added benefit is that you can run the best audio signal I2S  cable from the reclocker. online they now have pretty decent USB to I2S converters if you just want to run it into your dac, depending just how good your dac cleans the incoming signal. for even the little linear power supply in your streamer cannot match what a good DDC can do .  In mine I took it up a notch, and went from Femto clocks 

to precision. dual Oven clocks ⏰,plus a lot of filtering , and isolation using I2S Cable from DDC to the dac ,a Big difference in musicality for just over $1k , if you have  a more moderate system around $550 for a decent one ,,buy a respectable cable ,they look like a hdmi cables, Wireworld  work well nothing under $70 like the Sphere ,or Silver Sphere around $270 , to me. A worth wild option , you can spend $10k on a ddc but that is overkill IMO,That being said ,I have heard $100k digital setups ,for people with Ultra budgets . Way out of my league even when I owned a Audio store. 

This is absolute garbage advice by someone who clearly has no idea what they’re talking about.

I don’t understand why anyone would call what someone else writes "absolute garbage" over something so trivial as a person giving their opinion that a computer is good versus a dedicated streamer.

Everyone is entitled to their own devices and opinions.

I have used both apple and pc as my sources. The quality of sound from my streamer is definitely superior if only due to how much cleaner the sound is without all the extra processing noise being generated by the cpu/sytem as it was being a cpu for other things not related to music...

@jetter Trust me, that guy is probably the only one who would make such a bullying statement on Audiogon for now. Just ignore him. When a mad dog barks at you, do you bark back? No—you ignore it and walk away like nothing happened. It shouldn’t bother you or anyone else.

That said, to be fair, I moved from a fanless MacBook to a dedicated streamer and noticed a clear improvement in sound quality. There are affordable devices like the Wiim Pro/Plus on Amazon with a hassle-free return policy. It comes with GEQ/PEQ and room correction that probably only exists in much higher end streamer. Give one a try to see if your system reveals better sonic attributes...

Definitely experiment with your cabling. The streamer you have should be blowing the water out of your PC.