Ethernet connection for best sound quality

@soix 

Like I pointed out, a streamer is simply a small computer and it generates all the electromagnetic noise that a regular PC would generate. In fact, most use Linux as the base operating system and commodity compute modules / hardware for processing.

One benefit of a streamer might be the lack of mechanical noise from cooling fans, but if you build and configure a PC carefully they're basically inaudible from a few feet away.

You don't need a streamer unless it's inconvenient for you to use the PC. A streamer is basically a small computer with some software installed to enable streaming. You could download this software yourself or enable it (depending on what OS is on the PC).

You also don't need a fancy Ethernet card or shielded cabling either. If you own a cell phone or use wi-fi and Bluetooth, or can receive TV / radio stations, your audio components are already bathing in a sea of RF signals.

@soix

Better components?

Let’s look at the Innuos Statement - a flagship streamer. What is the CPU they use?

An Intel Quad Core N4200 - link

Launch date of Q3 2016. This processor is a 7 year old design. Recommended customer price of $56.00. It looks like Intel will stop broad support for this processor on Sep. 30, 2023.

I don’t think this is state of the art.

The operating system running the streamer is Linux-based.

If a streamer uses Linux, it’s most likely using open source software called ’mpd’ for playback. It probably uses other open source projects to handle streaming protocols like shairplay (AirPlay) and umpdcli for UPnP.

So what are audiophiles really paying for?

Second, I’ll put an Innuos Statement (or any Innuos streamer for that matter) up against the Raspberry Pi you use in your system 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

I would too because I bet in a blind listening test you’d be surprised at the results.

The reason why companies sell overpriced streamers is because people don’t know any better. I don’t think the average audiophile realizes that these multi-thousand dollar products are based on low-cost, low-powered hardware and freely available open source projects.

The flip side of the coin is that these products are advertised as having ’less noise’ yet there are no measurements to confirm that this is in fact the case. At least if you buy a Ferrari you know that you’re getting better performance (in certain respects) than a Camry because it’s been measured and tested.

The fact of the matter is that a great sounding streamer can be made from something as simple as a Raspberry Pi 4 which more than likely has more processing power and basically the same audio software stack as the $12k+ Innuos Statement.

Yeah, if there are no measurements you sure as hell can’t hear it.

No, if there are no measurements, there’s no proof that you’re getting what you pay for. A claim such as ’lower noise’ can (and I think should) be verified and backed up with data.

Clearly Innuos, Aurender, Lumin, Grimm, dCs, etc. are selling snake oil and all the people here who hear clear improvements are deluding themselves

No, I didn’t say they’re selling snake oil. Clearly the streamers can push bits to a DAC. The issue I have is that folks believe they need to spend thousands or in some cases tens of thousands of dollars for ’good sound’ from a supposed ’state of the art’ product when what’s inside is basically aged, low-powered commodity hardware and free open source software.

For example, look at the interior image of the Grimm MU1 in this review (link) . This shows the compute / streaming module in the upper left. It looks just like a standard Intel NUC motherboard (link). Here’s a review of the actual NUC PC itself (link). This review is from 2018. If you bought this computer, you’d have the same hardware that Grimm uses to stream audio data to a DAC. The solid state drive they use to store the audio data itself looks like a Samsung 860 or 870 Evo which is nice but nothing special.

You can buy the NUC currently on Amazon for $175 and the Samsung 870 Evo 2 TB for $119.

What are audiophiles really paying for?

I can almost guarantee you that these companies are using garden variety, off the shelf hardware in these products. It keeps parts costs low and increases repairability. It also ensures that the operating system they use (most likely Linux since they don't have to pay for a software license) will run without any issues.

@rubicon15 

I found an image of the Lumin U2 Mini here (link) and it appears the compute module is hidden by the heatsink so it's not possible to know what the streamer is using unless you contact Lumin or remove the heatsink itself. If I had to make an educated guess, though, the form factor suggests it could be a Rockchip based system on module (link) or something else made for embedded computing. If that's the case, the streamer uses an ARM-based CPU (commonly found in smartphones, tablets and small board computers like the Raspberry Pi) and runs some form of Linux as the OS.

If you want to know more, it may be worth your while to post to a DIY audio forum and post some close-up pictures there or send your questions to Lumin directly.

@joes44 

You can absolutely use the UDP-205 as a streamer. I've done this with my UDP-203 in the past. What you need to do is connect the Oppo to your network using either wired Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Go to the setup menu and test the internet connection (it may take a while for the Oppo to obtain an IP address from your router).

Once the test is successful, the Oppo will advertise itself on your network as a UPnP renderer. Cambridge Audio has a good explanation of UPnP (link).  Now that the UDP-205 is a renderer, you can stream to it using an app installed on your mobile device. I use BubbleUPnP on my Android phone or mConnect HD on my iPad. You will need to log in to Tidal on the UPnP app and select the Oppo as your rendering device (tap 'Play to' on mConnect or the cast icon in lower right in BubbleUPnP). Then just search for some music and hit play.

If your music is stored on a PC using Windows, you can enable the built-in UPnP sever so that you can use BubbleUPnP or mConnect to browse your music files stored in your Music folder and stream those to the Oppo over your local network (link). If music files are stored on a Mac, you can download an app called Kodi that can turn the Mac into a UPnP server (link).

@joes44 

I also forgot to mention that the UDP-205 can also function as a USB DAC. You can connect your PC directly to the Oppo using a USB cable. See p.20 in the user manual for details. Don't forget to change your audio output device to the UDP-205 in Windows.

A coaxial connection between a streamer and the Oppo is possible. Just make sure you use the coaxial input jack on the rear panel. I suggest using the USB input, however. It supports higher sampling rates and DSD (if you're interested in that format) as well.

Music from YouTube is compressed using a lossy algorithm called Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). This means that some of the information in the original file is thrown away so the file size is minimized. Most likely it won't sound quite as good as listening to the same track from a CD or streaming from Tidal.

If you're looking at a somewhat long run of Ethernet, I also suggest looking at Blue Jeans Ethernet cables (link). Each one is tested to ensure that it meets or exceeds the spec it's rated for and you're given a test report with the cable.