Sound quality differences in streamers

Audiophiles who own more expensive streamers are generally no longer comparing these to the affordable, they've moved past that. Vast majority are comparing expensive streamers, the fact a wide variety are purchased likely goes to show all expensive streamers don't  sound alike, they aren't choosing their particular streamer  based on some emotional attachment or bragging rights. Evaluating sound quality is what sets the audiophile apart from the casual listener, based on my experience listening to a wide variety of high end systems over many decades I've come to understand many audiophiles are very good judges of sound quality. Seems some believe they have golden ears, so if they don't hear a difference between streamers its not possible for others to hear differences.

I should add the objectivist would also presume their system to be reference quality, therefore, has the potential to expose any possible difference in streamer sound quality.

Anyone who’s compared a $400 streamer to a $2k+ streamer will tell you there’s a very significant difference between the two.

That's a laughable fallacy—there are numerous counterexamples.  Here is one. 

@ricred1 You must be directing your comments to someone else.

Now you should rest assured that @mdalton was not directing anything at you.

Many years ago, when I got my Auralic Aries streamer, it sounded better than my modded laptop, but not night & day better.  I decided to try an experiment.

The stock DC umbilical cord to the factory LPS looked really cheap and flimsy.   I DIY’d a new DC umbilical cord out of 20 awg pure OCC copper solid core wiring.  Huh!  You got to be kidding me! The same streamer sounded much, much better.  Totally leaving the modded laptop in the dust.   Later, I replaced the factory LPS with a more powerful after-market low noise LPS.  Another substantial jump in sound quality.   The sound quality jumped again when I plugged the streamer's LPS into a power conditioner.   This totally disproved the theory that it’s only 1’s & 0’s.     Of course, a high-quality, well-designed streamer with all the tweaks built-in is going to cost more. 

As @sns pointed out, those who already own expensive streamers don’t regress back down the food chain.  They only go up.  If the budget allows, it’s worth it.

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BTW, I don’t use a waveform monitor to listen.   My ears do that.  They know what a piano sounds like.  I listen to a real one often.

I would agree that non-data "noise" such as, say, SMPS noise can affect sound quality if and when allowed to enter the analog realm, if you will (usually meaning your DAC’s output section); but would you say that that noise can affect sound quality while within the digital realm

@devinplombier  It’s well known that adding an external LPS to streamers that don’t have an internal one meaningfully improves their performance, so yes in that way it affects sound quality in the digital realm.  Another example would be the use of galvanic isolation in better and more pricey streamers and DDCs.  If noise didn’t interfere with the signal in the digital realm then neither of these things would make a difference.  The better/cleaner the digital signal is going into the DAC the better otherwise transports/streamers wouldn’t sound any different, so in that way things like decreasing noise and using better clocks in streamers (and transports) improves sound quality.

As far as mdalton, he’s on record as saying there’s no point in spending more than $2k on a streamer, which is just silly among most anyone here who’s heard one and speaks to his inability to hear those differences.  While that’s fine for him, coming here and possibly discouraging others from even trying a pricier streamer by telling people there’s no difference is a disservice to those who may not suffer from his hearing disability, and that’s the real problem.  My point is just try for yourself and if you don’t hear an improvement with a better/more expensive streamer then fine, but for most people here it doesn’t play out that way, which is why companies like Innuos, Aurender, Grimm, Antipodes, etc. exist and thrive — it’s not because we’re all fooling ourselves here or because we wanna just throw our $$$ away for no reason.