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Apple TV Streaming Sound Quality vs Streamer?

I am looking for the weak link to improve sound quality.   Seems logical it is the Apple TV as a source.  Would a moderate streamer inside of $1500 make much of a difference when streaming Tidal and the like?  

Current Equipment:
Speaker: Dali Euphonia MS-4
AMP: Modwright KWA 150 SE
Preamp/ DAC: Peachtree Grand Integrated
Source: Tidal / Apple TV
puffbojie
ljgerens
152 posts
 
I have never used Tidal, so I can't comment on its SQ with an Apple TV. I  wirelessly stream my lossless ripped CDs from my iMac or my wife's MacBook Pro to either an Apple TV or an Airport Express and use the optical out into a DAC. In my experience the SQ using the Apple TV or Airport Express is identical to the Node 2.

My son purchased a Node 2 a while back and he found no difference between it and his Apple TV using his external DAC. He let me try it before returning it and my results were the same as his. I have 4 systems, 2 with an Airport Express and 2 with an Apple TV. I tried the Node 2 with all four of my systems and heard no difference using my DACs. I tried the Node 2 with its internal DAC, but I preferred the SQ with my DACs.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

Depending on your DAC, the Synchro-Mesh could make a huge difference, running Toslink from the ATV and AE to the SM and then a good BNC coax from the SM to the DAC.

If $699 is too rich for you, then try the $150 iFi SPDIF iPurifier.  Get it on Amazon.  Not as good, but should be an improvement. You can get a pretty decent broadcast quality BNC cable and 75 ohm RCA adapters from Markertek.com

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

nicholass
4 posts
 
A very nice thread, the only one with useful advices I could find nowadays.

So, basically, the total: there is no a cheap dual-wifi/equal to HDMi-audi-connection device that sounds the same as wired HDMI/optical and doesn't have an inner DAC. So if I wanna use an external DAC/AV connected either way to ATV, I can't find it on the market with a low price as just a streaming device (only AEX/ATV/Chromecast) just to transfer audio. And the only way that I may try is a Synrcho-Mesh for low jitter, but nothing will make it as good as HDMI/optical, because the lower a bandwidth/upsampling still be presented.

And just a rhetorical question: why just there is no such a device that provides a full bandwidth and not being a DAC > 200$? What's the point if it's a really needed thing for hi-fi/MQA with either a Tidal/CD/wav/flac. I started to dive in all that not a long time ago, but this is the main issue I stuck with and now siting with HDMI Mac-->DAC :-D
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
And the only way that I may try is a Synrcho-Mesh for low jitter, but nothing will make it as good as HDMI/optical, because the lower a bandwidth/upsampling still be presented.

HDMI is not hi-res, but Toslink can be depending on the source.  Not sure what you are saying here.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

jeenam
131 posts
 
audioengr | steve

Why do you say FLAC will never sound as good as WAV? My understanding is FLAC is 100% lossless. If a device were to decompress the FLAC input and place into a memory buffer which then feeds a DAC, shouldn't FLAC sound as good?

And regarding ethernet, it would seem the fix to all of this crap with sync/async would be to standardize on a protocol for audio that is similar to TCP/IP in that it features error correction built-in which feeds into a memory buffer (memory is cheap nowadays) which would then feed the DAC section. I have no idea why the audio community hasn't figured this out already.
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