2. digital
  3. 194442-192372

We Need To Talk About Ones And Zeroes

Several well-respected audiophiles in this forum have stated that the sound quality of hi-res streamed audio equals or betters the sound quality of traditional digital sources.

These are folks who have spent decades assembling highly desirable systems and whose listening skills are beyond reproach. I for one tend to respect their opinions.

Tidal is headquartered in NYC, NY from Norwegian origins. Qobuz is headquartered in Paris, France. Both services are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud infrastructure services giant that commands roughly one third of the world's entire cloud services market.

AWS server farms are any audiophile's nightmare. Tens of thousands of multi-CPU servers and industrial-grade switches crammed in crowded racks, miles of ordinary cabling coursing among tens of thousands of buzzing switched-mode power supplies and noisy cooling fans. Industrial HVAC plants humming 24/7.

This, I think, demonstrates without a doubt that audio files digitally converted to packets of ones and zeroes successfully travel thousands of miles through AWS' digital sewer, only to arrive in our homes completely unscathed and ready to deliver sound quality that, by many prominent audiophiles' account, rivals or exceeds that of $5,000 CD transports. 

This also demonstrates that digital transmission protocols just work flawlessly over noise-saturated industrial-grade lines and equipment chosen for raw performance and cost-effectiveness.

This also puts in perspective the importance of improvements deployed in the home, which is to say in the last ten feet of our streamed music's multi-thousand mile journey.

No worries, I am not about to argue that a $100 streamer has to sound the same as a $30,000 one because "it's all ones and zeroes".

But it would be nice to agree on a shared-understanding baseline, because without it intelligent discourse becomes difficult. The sooner everyone gets on the same page, which is to say that our systems' digital chains process nothing less and nothing more than packets of ones and zeroes, the sooner we can move on to genuinely thought-provoking stuff like, why don't all streamers sound the same? Why do cables make a difference? Wouldn't that be more interesting?

devinplombier

Showing 4 responses by sns

sns
3,735 posts
 

I don't think its a great mystery that noise rides on grounds, clocks control the timing of  data packets, the lengths streamer manufactures go to address these issues is part of what differentiates streamers.

 

Perhaps those noisy server farms are indeed limiting the full potential of high end audio  streaming, somewhat analogous to the quality of the power grid and it's influence on our systems.  May not matter as much for streamers since ethernet is galvanically isolated from grounds noise.

sns
3,735 posts
 

In order to test for this one would need to directly connect their streamer to a server with locally stored files, no storage in cloud. This means server with original files at some record company/mastering concern/etc. Ain't never going to happen. And again I'll go back to analogy to power grid, audiophile insistence on providing clean grid/clean streaming chain is of no concern to these entities. Since this the case I guess we need to provide for our own power grid and local storage of Qobuz, Tidal, other music services massive libraries. Again, this ain't gonna happen. Point is why should we bother with things we can't change.

sns
3,735 posts
 

And we have a most obvious comparison. How does one  cd rips in local storage compare to their streams?  Many report, and I agree their streams are equal to the cd rips, what does this say about the importance of server farms, clouds.

sns
3,735 posts
 

If you want to get into switches that are something more than repackaged off the shelf check out the Dejitter Switch X, they have some pretty interesting perspectives on how networks can affect sound quality.

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