New streamer needed

audphile1

3,790 posts

03-04-2024 at 10:59am 

@benanders that’s a solid advice! I did this as well. For the comparison I used dbpoweramp to rip to uncompressed FLAC. The software is free if you use just the basic features. CD rom drive is a $40 LG external unit. Nothing fancy. 

@audphile1 would the FLAC’s sound better if ripped with a weightier optical drive, SOTA USB cable and laptop with LPS? I would suggest my pref:

Teasing only in good fun - promise - just couldn’t help myself 😜

I still use a 10-year-old Samsung bus-powered optical drive to a desktop through an old Canon scanner’s USB cable, files sound indistinguishable from the original CD’s played back on an array of CD players / setups (some of which are far blingier than mine). It was particularly informative to compare the two formats on AIO streamer+CD player devices, since same sound from such a device implies truly no [audible] underlying differences resulted from my generic ripping setup.

This would actually be a really good scenario for taking advantage of that Wiim Pro return policy you admire. A happy-measurements device that many people like and good software support, but near bottom-of-barrel cost-wise, and compared (albeit probably sighted and subjectively…) to a real nice CD player.

@stievus , it could be a straightforward way to toe the water before diving in the deep end? If your expectations don’t get the best of you and your ripped FLAC’s do sound similar to the CD’s, that would rule out a more costly streamer. Only thing you’d be missing are the club points and bragging rights from a given high end streamer manufacturer. 😉

Of course, even if an inexpensive streamer option like Wiim sounded different than your CD player, that wouldn’t insinuate it being the streamer, as the DAC could also have that role. Or depending on how deep you dive into component expectations/suspicions/synergies/etc, interaction of a specific streamer x DAC, or streamer x DAC x interconnects, or…

This is also an excellent chance to do blind testing, but that approach seems remarkably unpopular on Audiogon. It saved me a lot of money to redirect at demonstrably influential parts of my chain, but to each their own so no pressure implied!

stievus OP

6 posts

03-02-2024 at 09:10pm

… I then connected my (older) Accuphase transport to my DAC, which sound blew me away. What should I invest, and which ones to check, to keep me blown away :-)

@stievus seems you’re comparing older CD’s to streaming; you’d probably do well to make sure it’s not just different file quality vs. device performance differences you’re perceiving. CD files (production data known) vs. streamed files (production data often unknown) can easily be apples to oranges.

mdalton

235 posts

03-03-2024 at 08:28pm 

… my advice would be to get a streamer that does 0 processing to the native data stream.  That doesn’t mean you’re limited to 44.1k, it just means you would be hearing the music in the format that it was mastered to be played in, thru the DAC that you like. (This goes back to what @benanders may have been trying to get at a while ago, btw.)

Sure. There are multiple issues here. From what I’m reading, the first issue is not knowing if the CD’s and streamed files are the same (bit depth, master source, etc.), second is comparing two different pairs of devices.

Once a streamer model is chosen, use ripped files of the CD’s for comparison - not a streaming service. If some EAC FLAC or WAV files from storage sound the same as the CD player, the culprit is probably your streaming service. If they sound different, then you’re still confounded by tandem variables (DAC —> streamer) even if bias isn’t in the equation.