2. digital
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Are all streamers the same?

Dogma says they’re all the same. Experience suggests otherwise. Price may or may not be guide. Are there solid tech reasons such as bleed of noise into the digital signal? What does “it’s all about the ‘implementation’”really mean? How come power cords and interconnects make a difference? For example, there are numerous USB cords that separate the power from the signal cables to minimize interference and noise transference.

Why don’t we have an accepted science of audio, as yet? Where’s the research compilation esp at textbook level? Yes I’m happy just listening and using my ears and my biases to make judgments; no problem.

Yet I continue to see dogma, from the USA and Europe, indeed everywhere, that remains steadfast in their disbelief in variances. It becomes tiresome at times. But hey what do I care? Lol, my pursuit of fidelity and knowledge remain equally strong.

johnread57

Showing 1 response by glennewdick

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glennewdick
1,769 posts
 

I must be the outlier here as I have gone the PC - Roon Nuc - Aurender A10 -Chord 2go/2yu - Apple TV box. and from my experience its not as significant as some people claim. But this is heavily DAC dependent and file type, mastering quality.

I've had an optimized and isolated PC sound way better then all the others but its also a pain to use and set up/maintain. 

In the end when I upgraded my DAC (Chord Dave), all of the major differences in streamers disappeared or reduced to almost insignificancy. 

At this point I feel the streamer is important, but the differences are slight at best and most do not justify the huge prices asked.

At this point interface and apps are the deciding factor for me. example Aurender's app is just poorly implemented support is poor, the manual is laughable. And this is also the issue with many of the streamers and their apps. Specially second thought streamers by some of the biggest audio companies, looking at you Mac...  

 

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