@sns Gee that was a superb review/article over at AS on that Taiko, thanks for sharing. I was already a convert to much of his three principles, but boy it was filled with interesting observations on an array of factors relevant to good sound in a highly sorted system. I should visit AS more, I mean when you have folk like John Swenson contributing in the comments.
A few points that particularly resonated with me, areas to potentially explore on a more modest budget:
- DAC (Direct attached cables) network cables are lower power draw than either Ethernet or optical SFPs, and he seemed to note a correlation between low power draw and sound quality
- the level of processing required to playback more demanding high bit rate music was inversely proportional to the sound quality (at least over that new XDMI interface)
- high capacity, high current delivery Lithium iron phosphate batteries can sound good but are sensitive to any electronics /cabling in the chain (I’ve observed this first hand in my system with one I use to power a router and modem)
- even with super pure battery power, the system was still sensitive to AC quality, power conditioning and potentially grounding helps (again first hand: ground quality is so important, I can highly recommend a low impedance path to ground, or better yet, paths plural)
Sorry all, getting a little OT once more - but hey, all just areas of interest in endeavoring to optimize my Harmony-based system 