why expensive streamers


@soix and others

I am unclear about the effect on sound of streamers (prior to getting to the dac). Audio (even hi-res) has so little information content relative to the mega and giga bit communication and processing speeds (bandwidth, BW) and cheap buffering supported by modern electronics that it seems that any relatively cheap piece of electronics would never lose an audio bit. 

Here is why. Because of the huge amount of BW relative to the BW needs of audio, you can send the same audio chunk 100 times and use a bit checking algorithm (they call this "check sum") to make sure just one of these sets is correct. With this approach you would be assured that the correct bits would be transfered. This high accuracy rate would mean perfect audio bit transfer. 

What am I missing? Why are people spending 1000's on streamers?

thx

 

delmatae

Showing 1 response by tshark

May for a question for ghdprentice as he seems to have had a good number of streamers.
 

Q. What price streamer is appropriate for my system?

McIntosh MA8900, Luxman SACD, NAIM Uniti Core CD ripper/streamer & Von Schweikert Ref Ed floor standing speakers, w high end interconnects & mains. 

I’m thinking I need to upgrade to separate DAC too.

I don’t mind spending $ and I am curious about what I might be missing based on all I’ve read about DAC & streamers. 
 

THX

 

Dallas TX