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?
This, and files can further be checksummed or hashed to confirm that the received copy is identical in all aspects to the sent copy. Meanwhile, those AI are getting pretty good :) |
@hbarrel -
Exactly! This is the key to any digital network and why it actually works, whether it is a financial transaction, email, video feed, or music. What you transmit in the beginning is what you get at the end. |
@devinplombier Thank you. However, as I explained in a later post, I believe I was unclear and misunderstood, for I never said the streaming ITCP protocol assure transmission of anything less than bit perfect files. I said it is not “unscathed” from an audiophile perspective in that the transmission to conversion process introduces timing errors, transmission impairments, and EMI noise. @kennyc stated it more eloquently than I … The digital data rides on an analog signal that can pick up noise. High-end computing ≠ High-end audio where we care how it “sounds”. Therefore, I apologize if my conclusion was unclear. Restated, is is that audio files are transmitted bit perfect but not unscathed from factors degrade sound quality and it is the design intent of the DAC to correct or limit these factors to improve sound quality. I also concluded it is not the DAC conversion stage but the analogue output stage that is critical to sound quality. |
Audiophile switch sellers purchase off-the-shelf switches, ditch the noisy switching mode power supply (SMPS) that came with it, repackage the switch with a small linear power supply (LPS), and sell it at a huge markup. The LPS will in fact yield a significant noise level reduction. In other words, the product they're selling actually performs pretty well. The only issue then is that they're selling, say, $80 worth of goods for $500, with no other expense than maintaining a website chockfull of audiophile puffery. In a way, we can look at these people as arbitragers, leveraging audiophiles' lack of interest in or familiarity with basic network equipment. All the more the reason to be a well-informed community - it's good for our wallets! 😃
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