Old phones as streaming sources

@tubeguy76 

wrll there you have it!  guess we’re done! 

posted this earlier, but in case you missed it.  noise is easy to measure.  so while different streamers can be noisier and have higher levels of jitter, some, but not all, DACs can level the playing field, making it unnecessary to spend big $ on streamers.  

@soix 

You seem very angry.  I’ve complimented your decisions about your system, and i meant it!  But you’ve accused me of bad judgment, called me a fool, and described my well-supported opinions as absurd.  I’m pretty sure that we would find each other’s systems to be awesome.  So I’d recommend that you ratchet back the acrimony, and try to find the love of the hobby that we share.

well there it is! @ghdprentice has spoken! can’t believe we wasted our time on this topic.  thx so much for enlightening us!

@lanx0003 

btw, we ran the okto unbalanced - it’s really designed for balanced, so we sacrificed a few db of its very high SNR in the test.  I use Cardas converters, which are really well made, but still….

@bruce19 

here’s someone who actually measured the results of using a phone as a streamer vs several other options.  His takeaway, no surprise, is that the DAC matters a lot.  Jitter rejection and noise filtering at the DAC can level the playing field:

you should check out streamer reviews on hifi news.paul miller does a measurements section at the end of each.  in some cases, he shows the inferred jitter and snr of the streamer, and the impact on different dacs. cross walking that to the archimago piece, you might be able to compare cheap streamers to more expensive ones.  

@tubeguy76 

Ok, sorry about that.  But if you read the Archimago stuff, or if you look at the HiFi News reviews with measurements, the point is not that every streamer measures the same, or will sound the same.  What they demonstrate is that with some DACs, any differences with stream can be almost completely eliminated.  So it might be helpful if you gave a little more info on your experience.

I don’t know. but it seems to me that in order to be so definitive about a position, it would seem incumbent on the person arguing that position to cite something other than “people who have better streamers”, particularly in light of the science and measurements of some credible audio professionals that support the OP’s position.  And I commend the OP for his much more humble approach here, and for acknowledging out loud what virtually every male over 50 years of age - most of us on this forum lol! - are experiencing.  Michael Fremer did a rather courageous review a couple years ago of hearing aids.  

“A friend of mine mentioned that Aurender said somewhere in their literature that the streamer accounts for 70% of the sound quality of a system vs 30% DAC…”

I don’t mean any disrespect, and I am sure your system sounds great, but that’s absurd (unless the DAC design leaves the DAC completely vulnerable to jitter and other noise).  Of course Aurender would make that argument!  Their comparative advantage, particularly from a branding and marketing perspective, is in streaming.  If someone were to believe that the streamer is less important, they wouldn’t get an Aurender.  So it is axiomatic that Aurender would make that claim.  

@soix 

I didn’t actually make such a blanket statement, no.  I can imagine there are $10k DACs that do a poor job of cleaning up noise on the incoming digital signal, in which case I would definitely recommend a well-engineered, noise-free streamer (though I would never recommend an Aurender or its ilk as I think they are dramatically overpriced for what you get).  

In your case, you have a Denafrips ddc which cleans everything up before your NOS dac, which makes a lot of sense.  You also didn’t spend a bunch on a streamer, opting for the zen, which seems smart to me (I have one in one of my systems too btw).  But frankly, you could prob go even cheaper - e.g. RPi) if you wanted - I did that exact experiment.

Finally, I would note, as discussed in another thread, that Benchmark, who makes some of the quietest, most resolving DACs and amps extent, have said that streamers don’t make a difference with their DACs.  Re rocking on, I’m more of a jazz dude, but I appreciate the sentiment.

@soix 

of course you heard the difference without the ddc!  that was precisely my point!  your dac is not immune to noise.  so there was an obvious difference between the phone and the zen.  that’s what I would have predicted!

that’s an example of “petitio principii” (assuming the original point).  The OP and some others seem to have experienced quite good, “audiophile” results using their phones.  I myself would never use a phone as my streamer because a modern IPhone is overkill for what is actually a very simple process - assuming functions like reclocking, up sampling or DSP are done elsewhere - requiring a very simple computer.  Current iPhones run at 3.5 ghz, the Raspberry Pi is 1.5 ghz, and the Apollo 11 computer ran at .043 mhz (lol!).  

When I first got serious about streaming, I built my own RPi streamer as a learning experience.  I don’t think being an audiophile should be equated to some level of expenditure (though I’ve spent a fair amount, admittedly).  But I think alot of audiophiles are a little intimidated by servers, streamers and the like because they involve technology that is not intuitive for most of us.  And I believe that there are companies out there that take advantage of that, and market products that may not do what we want to believe they do.  

The number of times I hear non-experts (like me!) say that something is less noisy, or “lowers the noise floor”, and then dismiss actual test results showing something different is incalculable.  That’s why I think threads like this, conducted in a civil way, are important.  We should have these conversations.  That’s what audiophiles do.  Respectfully.

@lanx0003 

Not really my main point, but the sonictransporter, acting as my Roon core, is doing a lot more processing than the streamer.  But the fact that it runs at about the same speed as a phone is actually telling, isn’t it?  Nonetheless, I also agree that speed isn’t everything.  

@lanx0003 

reread your post again. I think you misunderstood my point.  “Overkill” as in unnecessary, but not necessarily detrimental.  iPhones are powerful and pretty sophisticated, with all sorts of capabilities, and their prices reflect that.  So unless I were so cash-constrained that the only device I could afford was an extra phone lying around, I wouldn’t use a phone as my streamer.  I’d just buy an RPi or a Wiim product.  In a couple of my systems, I went a little beyond that for form function reasons, and because they were paired with DACs that I wasn’t sure how well they’d handle noise - I bought the Zen Stream and now have it paired with an iFi Zen dac, and I bought an open-box Pro-Ject S2 Ultra Stream to pair with a Topping DAC (that one still felt a little pricey even at $600, but it’s very cool, and almost as small as a Pi).  In both those systems, I experimented with the Pi, and was pleasantly surprised how good they sounded.  But the Pi is a little kludgy, so I gave it to my son-in-law, who has repurposed it in his home security system - gotta love the Pi!

agree re our convos.  have enjoyed your persoective.  re okto, I like it a lot.  it’s in a really nice, “budget” system I put together that is not set up for critical listening due to room constraints,  even so it sounds very, very good.  I did a dac shoutout with a good friend in his highly resolving system: dcs bartok, gold note ds10 (with evo ps), okto and mytek brooklyn. my faves, in order, were gn, dcs, okto, mytek.  okto had everything, but not quite as full bodied as dcs.  i thought gn had a little more “bloom” or meat than dcs, which I like.  btw, my topping is an e70 - I like it, but honestly, I’m more a vinyl guy at heart - goes better with tubes and single malt!

@lanx0003 

Oh, no, the E70 I have is the one with the ESS 9028pro chip; I spent the huge sum of $349 on it!  The $600 was a reference to my Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra; it normally sells for $899; I misspoke, as I got it open box for $699, not $600.  I may upgrade from the Topping at some point, but it’s not a priority, as it’s part of my vintage system, which is very vinyl-centric.

The Okto is the Czech-made DAC in my family room system; if memory serves, I paid about $1,200 for it, and installed a Pi in it myself, as they were experiencing supply chain issues at the time.  All of my systems are posted, with pix, on my systems page.

ok, i’ll go!  regarding reference music, I don’t know, I think live music and my system at home are very different.  For example, my most recent live music experiences, both very recent, were Blues Alley (very small) and Kennedy Center (much bigger but not huge).  In both cases, instruments were amplified, and there’s no “soundstage” to speak of.  So my view is that soundstage is an audiophile artifice created to replace the visual experience of live music.  It’s not really about recreating the auditory experience of live music.  

Re good recordings, totally agree, the quality of the recording really matters to my enjoyment.  There are some recordings that just suck, no matter how great the artist performance may have been.