Dude,
Oh well. At least he tested the jitterbug in the right place where a reduction in jitter might matter. Unfortunately there appears to be no useful effect.
Tgris,
Most streamers do buffer data in memory to isolate the D to A process from any minor temporary variations in bits per second but jitter can and usually does still get introduced to the signal between streamer and DAC for various reasons so its up to the DAC to deal with any jitter introduced into its input signal and more and more modern DACs do just that by re-timing the digital signal just prior to conversion to analog. |
As I read it that Audioquest Jitterbug device is for use with USB DAC connections, not USB drives, which makes sense. |
Djones if the streamer is accessing files on a remote device directly via a network file share, the file share protocol may be a bottleneck that could limit bandwidth. Better to run music server software on the device hosting the files and allow streamers
to connect to to music server as clients. |
Bits per second for cd resolution audio versus USB is what matters. |
...so Uber looking back at your original question your configuration with uSB connected direct to streamer fits the bill. Your streamer is serving as both a music server and streamer with usb attached so it could produce more noise and jitter that impacts the digital to analog conversion process than a NAS. The reverse could be the case as well, especially with a wired internet connection to NAS, or there could be no difference at all. Could vary case to case, streamer to streamer. The devil is always in the details. One would have to try both ways to know. |
One possible problem scenario with a usb attached drive might be if the computer is both a server and streamer and the USB drive attached results in the computer producing more noise that introduces jitter in the streamer to DAC interface.
That is a unique case where a single device serves as both music server and streamer. I can only speculate that might possibly be a factor in some cases but even if so should be manageable with a good design.
I use USB drives on my music server PC but I have separate streamer devices that connect wirelessly to the server. This is a very good configuration IMHO because the streamer is far away from the home computer with no vulnerable wired connection and home computers can certainly introduce noise capable of producing jitter on the feed to a DAC.
So it is always possible in this case one connection behaves better than another due to noise differences but even if so that does not mean that one approach is better than the other categorically. That would be jumping to conclusions.
Also note that most good quality modern DACS are designed to be jitter resistant so the likelihood of an audible issue is even less in that case.
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Anyone can look those numbers up for themselves with google if in doubt.
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Uber what I am telling you is technical fact not opinion. It’s how computers work. If I got something wrong or am missing something I am all ears.
You can take it or leave it. That’s your choice.
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In this case, there is only one plausible answer. USB or NAS storage alone has nothing to do with sound quality for the reason I explained.
If you hear a difference there is another reason for that. |
Jitter is relevant to the digital to analog sound conversion process between music streaming source and DAC downstream but not here in the case of either usb disk storage or NAS. Neither has anything directly to do with sound quality, just digital data transfer from computer storage to computer memory, audio being just another kind of data file accessed. Bits are assured of being transferred accurately in all cases if things are in proper working order else nothing loaded from a usb drive or network adapter could work reliably. |
Usb 2 bandwidth is ~480 million bits per second.
Cd resolution music bitrate is 1.4 million bits per second.
No problem. Not even close.
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As long as there is enough bandwidth to transfer the data fast enough ( there should be with most home network connections or with most any properly functioning usb drive with cd resolution files ) there should be no difference.
If not, some streaming software is designed to be able to reduce streaming resolution accordingly, but in most cases the music will simply stop playing while the data rebuffers up enough to stream again at the source resolution.
Behavior here could vary streamer to streamer.
Otherwise, there should be no difference. The storage device is either capable of delivering the data fast enough or not.
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