Sound quality differences in streamers

And I don’t really care how many people believe one way or another.  The only person who seems to believe that majority rules on this issue is the person who made the statement. 

@mdalton Yeah, the fact that the vast majority of people here agree streamers make a difference versus the relatively few examples you’re able to dig up with the opposite view doesn’t indicate anything whatsoever.  🙄🤪  Deny, deny, deny.  You’re in the vast minority here for a reason whether you wanna accept that or not.  If you’re right then there a thousands of us kidding ourselves that we hear differences, or maybe — just maybe — it’s you who can’t hear a difference.  Which one of those sounds more logical and likely?  I care not whether someone hears a difference in streamers or not, but for you to tell people there is no difference because you can’t hear it and that that may stop someone from just trying for themselves because they might actually believe you is the bigger problem.  And yeah, when the vast majority feels more one way than the other I tend to believe them more than the minority.  Silly me. 

To the OP:  As you can see, there’s an ongoing debate among a number of us who’ve responded to your question that sometimes gets in the way of clarity.  So  I’ll speak directly to you in order to clarify my position, rather than have it cartoonishly misrepresented by others:

1)  Streamers work solely in the digital domain, and as such have no sonic signature of their own.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t differences in the sound across different streamers, because streamers do differ with respect to the noise they produce or suppress.  This noise - or its absence - can affect the extent to which you hear the true sonic signature of your DAC.  Many mistakenly attribute this interaction to the sound of the streamer.

2) There are relatively inexpensive streamers that are state-of-the-art in terms of minimizing noise.  This is relatively easy to measure.  

3) There is a wide variation among DACs regarding the extent to which they may be affected by noise from a streamer.  In the prior thread I shared with you, a general consensus emerged that the OP’s ARC DAC was probably highly insensitive to streamer noise, in part because all signals were reclocked.  Having said that, his DAC was very sensitive to RFI/EMI, so he could hear a significant difference between an $80 vs. $230 coax cable connected to his DAC.

4) Because of #3 above, you might be able to get away with a Bluesound or Wiim and experience great sound, depending on your DAC.  But because of #2 above, you can spend a little more than what a Wiim or Bluesound costs, but definitely under $2k, and have a high end streaming system with any good DAC.

5) You do not need to spend $10k (or $29k for gods sake) to have a high end streamer.  But there are $10k+ streamers out there that are beautifully made and wonderfully engineered that will sound great if you have a great DAC.

Hope that helps.  Good luck in your journey.

The so-called ’digital realm’ takes place on an analog carrier.

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The link below is a worthwhile read.  It is an enlightening discussion about 1’s & 0’s and square waves by AudiogoN veterans:

- Almarg (physicist & multiple patent holder, RIP) 

- Audioengr (Steve Nugent, former design-team lead at Intel Corp & holder of 22 patents)

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https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/square-waves-or-1-s-and-0-s

1) Streamers work solely in the digital domain, and as such have no sonic signature of their own.

Unless the designer puts one there. It's easy enough to implement basic DSP functionality in FPGA chips.

@devinplombier 

yes, the proviso is always “absent up/oversampling, dsp, etc.”