Sound quality differences in streamers

@soix in the process of slightly missing my point, you seem to be helping my point. At the end of the day, a quality DAC with a sophisticated input section will strip any and all noise from the incoming data stream; in that way, digital accoutrements such as audiophile Ethernet switches, DDCs, $1000 USB cables and the like are paradoxically most efficacious if you own a crappy $99 DAC, which I most definitely trust you don’t.

@mdalton I look forward to it! Always game for politics and scotch :)

I’m not saying there are night and day differences between streamers or any components. In my experience, easily discernable differences are hard to ignore. In my opinion, high-end audio is about hearing small differences, that so may of us are willing to spend significant money for. How much one is willing to spend for incremental improvements is different for each of us. That’s where I am with speakers now. I’ve heard several speakers/system that I prefer to mine, but I’m not willing to spend the money to purchase a new system or new speakers.

@devinplombier  Of course the better the DAC can clean/reclock the incoming signal the better, but even the best DACs benefit from a better incoming signal.  Nobody is gonna feed a $20k DAC with a $400 streamer or a $100 USB cable uncles they’ve got a screw loose.

Its nonsensical to believe dacs act as a noise conditioner for detail obscuring noise further upward in streaming chain. The only sense of 'conditioning' a dac can possibly achieve is optimizing certain inputs, this usually usb on most dacs. Galvanic isolation is one of the ways they achieve this, dac manufacturers understand they are only one link in streaming chain, so attempt to optimize how they interface with rest of chain. Interfaces amongst all the other components within a streaming chain require the same optimization dac manufacturers provide, data is traveling across the entire chain. And interfaces are only one consideration, minimizing noise within components is fundamental/a priori to achieve lowest noise floors for max resolution/transparency. And we haven't even gotten to clocks within these components, this has everything to do with presentation. And so are we going to argue that clocks makes no difference.