Lumin U2 mini vs Mac laptop sound test
I compared and performed a blind test for a listening friend of the following streamer set ups.
1. Router hard wire into Lumin U2 then AES into DAC
2. Wifi into Mac air, out of Mac air via cheap USB cables from my printer and an adapter to go from USB C to whatever USB termination goes into the DAC.
Conclusion. My friend could not hear a diff. I "think" I hear a difference but not confident I could pass a blind test.
Rest of system:
SPL Director DAC/Preamp
SPL S1200 power amp
Kirmuss speaker cables
Audio Solutions Figure M
I did this for knowledge and fun. Please let me know any thoughts but I can not see how spending a lot of money for a streamer makes any sound difference.
John
Love this stuff
It's not surprising that your friend heard no difference. I've used multiple PCs / Macs / small board computers as a streamer (using USB and sometimes optical) and have heard no difference at all between them.
Logically, it doesn't make sense that a streamer should make a difference as all it's doing is moving bits from point A to B. As long as the data gets to the DAC intact, then you have the exact same digital audio being converted to analog, no matter how it gets there. |
Whoever you listened to on the Darko podcast was mistaken. Audio over USB is an isochronous transfer. This means that if bit errors are detected, the packet is dropped and not retransmitted. In this case you will hear dropouts, stuttering or pops during playback, not unlike this example - https://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/01/demo-measurements-what-does-bad-usb-or.html. Perhaps the person was conflating transferring audio over a network with a protocol like TCP/IP. In that case, TCP will guarantee reliable data transmission and resend lost or mangled packets.
There is virtually no jitter on an asynchronous USB connection (which is what most DACs use nowadays). The data is buffered and clocked back out by the receiver. Note that in the previous link, although you can hear the errors, the jitter plots appear very similar.
So what does jitter actually sound like? Here is a great website that has audio clips with varying amounts of induced jitter. Have a listen with you and your friend. See if what you hear matches what the audiophile conventional wisdom attributes to 'timing issues' - https://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like |
