Higher End DACs

@mikelavigne   Mike, thank you so much for your response and the details you shared. As always, your contributions are informative and helpful.

When I'm ready, I'll reach out to Emile to see if he can configure the SGM for Roon only functionality. I'm asking Jord Groen of Pink Faun the same. However, losing the Roon Rendering function that both have devoted part of their design / build efforts to is a concern for me. Those are tradeoffs I need to resolve for myself.

Meanwhile I have mid level servers from Wolf Audio and Innuos inbound. They should offer insight into the level of difference(s) versus my current Roon server. These comparisons will also inform whether a major step up is warranted.

Difficult to overstate the improvement in sound quality of the Extreme - as a server or streamer. I debated for awhile whether to invest in a higher end DAC or the Extreme with my current ‘mid priced’ DAC. I am glad I went with the latter. Most significant component upgrade I have experienced. 

What works, what’s cost effective, and what is today’s best possible sound quality for lossless streaming spans a huge spectrum of hardware complexity, software optimizations, weight and cost. The zero’s and ones are exactly the same be it a system built around Raspberry Pie, a SOC, a i7 or dual scalable Xeon CPU’s with 20 cores.

What is different is the RF emissions collection, and how it effects the sound quality. Here are my takeaways, observed over the last 5 years, and independently verified by intense DIY professionals like Romaz.

It has long been observed that lower software execution latency helps improve SQ, and we find it is still very much the case today. Lower latency shortens the CPU active time, and CPU associated RF emissions. What high powered CPU’s bring to the table are faster thread execution times, less CPU busy time, and that noticeably increases SQ to levels that slower and less powerful CPU’s cannot match.

RF emissions in the Kilo to Gigahertz  frequency bands which are emitted by the various clocks in digital gear can be attenuated by good shielding and grounding but what still gets through and then infiltrates in to the analog EM signal amplification environment results in an easy to identify audible signature. When carefully managed and shaped, these RF emissions can be SQ enhancing.

Digital equipment is as sensitive to mechanical vibrations as analog equipment. All crystal clock oscillators are vibration sensitive to an order of magnitude greater than their steady state frequency drift. Clock oscillators’ output signal voltages are also quite sensitive to power supply fluctuations. Overbuilt power supplies make their sonic presence heard in digital equipment.

Playing Streamed files does not require much CPU power, but the quantity of IP traffic going up and down comes with its SQ unhelpful sonic signature and the reason why the sonics of streaming are behind well implemented PCIe storage and RAM playback.

So while the size, complexity and cost of a high powered music server might seem to be over the top, the level of sonics one of these servers can deliver is not snake oil                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

To get to the specifics of the Extreme and why its very good at streaming, is the the optical SFP port which allows a somewhat noise cleaner LAN feed than copper.

With Qobuz the sonics are extremely enjoyable !

What’s this a sales pitch for a over priced computer to stream Qobuz? If you really want to keep all that noise down have the server in a different room and connect through ethernet problem solved. CPU latency isn’t a problem streaming over the internet neither is execution time they use ARM chips for the most part not x86.