Just my two cents here. A streamer at the end of the day is just a stripped down pc. Yes I understand the concept that by taking out all the other duties that a normal pc does can remove all the issues. Think sometime people are getting into an area of noise and jitter that our human ears are incapable of hearing. In the end is not a streamer also introducing issues as a component in the chain. The argument that if the router as first entry point loosing data that can never be recovered will drive you nuts. If that is the argument then you need to trace your inbound all the way back to you internet provider and ALL it in counters before your house. If it sounds great to your ears just sit back and enjoy the music!
Dedicated NUC/Nucleaus vs shared PC (w Fiber Media Converter connected to Endpoint)
A Roon system of 2 devices includes:
- Music Server (NUC/Nucleaus/PC, etc...)
- Endpoint (SOtM, Sonore, etc..)
with Fiber Media Converter in between.
I think we all agree that a dedicated machine of NUC/Nucleaus will be better than a shared PC as a music server. But is there a big difference of sound quality if we have optical isolation between the shared PC and an endpoint ?
Here is the idea:
A shared PC creates 2 problems:
- Analog noises (from power, fan..). But most of them can be eliminated by optical isolation like Fiber Media Converter (according to Small Green Computer).
- Latency, jitter (because PC run many other tasks). But the endpoint and DAC have buffers. So all jitters before DAC can be ignored. Besides, if we don’t listen to too fast music, the issue (if happen) will not impact much.
So does a NUC really brings a difference, compared with a shared Pc connected with endpoint through FIber media converter ????