Stepping into streaming, finally

@romanesq I was thinking to try optical connection between Staccato and Venus, but I thought, based on opinions I came across, that optical was inferior to high quality coax. Well, I will give it a try. What toslink cable do you use?

This is one of the aspects of this hobby that I like a lot, experimenting with, not necessarily uber expensive, changes. Sometimes it works sometimes not. I have recently tried XLR interconnects (Mogami) between Venus and Pathos, change for worse in comparison to DIY Duelund Helix Geometry coax (Williewonka recipe).

Hello knock1, was in the same camp as you and thought coax was superior because folks have repeated that over and over. Had been using that glass toslink from the RME ADI-2 to a plasma TV. The cable is pretty old. I don't even recall the year and manufacturer. There are lots of substitutes these days and for a lot less.

Had bought a very good Mogami coax last year just for use with the WiiM Pro. You can imagine my surprise that such a simple cable switch produced such a dramatic improvement. One reason may be I'm in an area with a lot of competing WIFI so the RFI interference is very high. That's my theory anyway. 

hard to imagine Spotify sounding as good as CD...

Well, I have devoted today to ABC comparison in a serious way, I think.

Here is what I found. CDs outperforming Staccato after all, mostly in soundstage region. My original assessment must have been due to being greatly surprised by how much better Staccato fared while comparing it to Wiim and Node. The strangest thing was that Tidal took the last place despite choosing the highest streaming rate. MQA sounded even worse, but this probably due to Staccato not being MQA capable.

So, after all I am satisfied with this little, but quite hefty, streamer and it probably will better itself since I had it only for three days.

Thanks for tips and participation in this discussion.

Just an add on for those considering or using a fiber optic solution run between switches (Cisco here) to the WiiM Pro.

The Finisar FLTX1474D3BTL (10km 1310 Single Mode) SFP+ is a significant improvement with one added to either end of a three meter fiber optic connection.

So, here it’s Verizon fiber optic router with ethernet out to a Cisco Meraki MS220-8P 8 Port Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch, one Finisar in the gigabyte port to another with fiber optic cable to another Finisar transceiver.

A very short (Blue Jeans) ethernet cable to the WiiM Pro (again run on a 5 volt LPS) and absolutely splendid results to tube monoblock amps.

Significant improvement for little cost: cascaded Cisco Merarki switches(unclaimed), Blue Jeans ethernet cables and Finisar SFPs. Great bang for the buck.