As Tim what brand digital cables are you using for Ethernet ,usb, ?
Discerning a difference between streamers is difficult...only me or common for all?
I have struggled to appreciate the upgrade to the streamer in my system. A couple years ago I had an Audio Research DAC 8 being fed by a Bluesound Node 2i. I picked up an Aurender N10 and did not appreciate anything so sold the N10. I tried a couple all-in-one units. First was the Aurender A20 and I was happy but curious about dCS. I got a Bartok 2.0 and felt the music was more natural sounding from the Bartok and sold the A20. I have always wanted the Audio Research DAC 9 to match all my other AR gear so got one that showed up on eBay a couple weeks ago. Since I couldn’t use the Bartok to stream I ordered a new Bluesound Node Nano so I could utilize the DAC 9 immediately. The pair sounded wonderful but I did not compare it to the Bartok. I ended up getting a quick buyer and it was already gone. The following week I purchase an Aurender W20. I was prepared to have my mind blown....but no. Some albums I could not tell any difference in the sound and others I think the W20 sounded slightly better but again...nothing huge. For the money and the space the W20 took on my shelf, I sold it. Over the years I always appreciate upgrades for all other components. This makes me feel like I am losing my mind. Have any others experienced this regarding streamers? I want to try more. Auralic and Lumin are on my list.
Thanks,
Dana
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I'm using HDMI out of my computer into a receiver. I'm not sure what brand it is. Some very basic HDMI cable that costs about 12 bucks and can handle 8 channels of audio at 24/96 along with a 4k HDR video signal. So I'm definitely not saying my system is one that might reveal issues with cables and streamers, although it definitely does concerning the HDMI cable from the Blu-Ray player to the TV, whe I can see and hear static sometimes when the cable needs to be jiggled to make it go away. On better systems, where cable time smear might cause easily audible issues, what time scale are we talking about? Millionths of a second? Is this smear that would cause data errors? From what I've seen in testing it's not hard for a cable to get up to a million hertz while still maintaining excellent phase and amplitude fidelity. |
Only if you use coax from streamer to DAC where jitter begins to matter. Otherwise all PCs are identical. CPU does not care if power is linear or switching. Internet does not tell of this is audio, video, jpeg or a Word file, all sent the same way. USB optical isolation may come handy in some cases. |
@dhite71 any plans to post your system pictures? |
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