Streamers rabbit hole

boy. there are so many streamers out there all claiming to be better than the other. My head is spinning.

I have an Anthem STR integrated amp, SVS SB300 sub, and Sonetto II G2s. Looking for a good streamer pairing for this system.

Comments please....

arstereo08-25-2025 3:36pm

cleeds Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 6,315 posts 09-02-2025 at 05:36pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete goodlistening64 ... I erroneously believed UDP had been adopted by streaming services by now ... Some may still use it. It wouldn't surprise me if both Spotify and Netflix use UDP protocol - each of them are lossy. But Qobuz and Tidal are TCP/IP and bit-perfect, for sure. ... then what is it in the digital signal that gets "scrubbed" or cleaned up in the Digital to Digital Converter? Dunno. I don't use a DDC.
cleeds Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 6,315 posts 09-01-2025 at 05:47pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete goodlistening64 ... TCP is reliable, but audio is packaged within the UDP (user datagram protocol) which has RTP (real time transport protocol) running on top of it. Audio is sent via UDP because it is faster and does not require a "handshake" on the other end ... I'm not sure which services you're referring to here. Certainly, hi-res services such as Qobuz and Tidal are using TCP-IP for bit perfect transmission to your streamer.