Sending music to DAC wireless vs wired

Did not know that isolation transformers are used in the digital input. I thought it can be used rather easily in the power supply but anyone can do that cheaply.

I figure that most of media players have rather inexpensive computer power supply so most of the ground noise is coming from the supply line instead of the nicer DAC.

Any inexpensive ones? Meaning <$1k. I figure it would rather expensive to implement a transformer for a digital signal.

Ejliu - most DAC's and Transports save money by not using pulse transformers, or they use cheap ones. It's completely different type than transformer used for power. It's a pulse transformer. They cost about $10-20 for a good one.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Juanitox,Busheep and others,

Trying to get my undereducated brain around the contention that wireless is better than wired. Only thing I can think of is that RF energy might be "cleaner" than electrical energy. But if this is the case, RF energy is certainly subject to various conditions which effect propagation and which do indeed effect the sound quality. Still I can accept the possibility that wireless is better, I just don't understand why.

So inquiring minds want to know (including Cerrot and Jpod) why is wireless better?

Jpod - you are missing the point. It's not that wireless is better than wired.

The point is that networked, packetized data is superior to USB protocol for music streaming. The reason that networked (ie; ethernet), both wired and wireless is better is because the data is packetized, flow-controlled and retried. USB is not packetized and typically has no flow-control and no retry.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Steve N,
Thanks for your response. Even though there was plenty of evidence to the contrary, I assumed that this thread was about "wireless vs. wired" in computer networks in general. But as I understand it now, this thread is only about getting data to a DAC.

I knew that a network connection was better than a USB connection for delivering data to a DAC. And I knew that devices like Sonos, Airport Express, Apple TV, Squeezebox and etc. do a great job of delivering networked data to a DAC. I guess what I did not know was what this particular thread was really about.

Dang, an embarrassment smiley face would come in handy right now.

Anyway, thanks again.

JPO