Hmm a bit worrying that those that are saying the streamer doesnt matter at all, isnt true. They certainly do make a difference to the SQ.
Be careful with some of the advise been given. Do a bit of digging here and you will find out that servers/renders do play a big part
I went for the Antipodes CX/EX solution combination in the end, as I wanted the best possible signal. Plus I would also take look into the Sotm sNH-10G switch with the evox upgrade and sps500 power supply.
That’s debatable. And YMMV.
But in my own experience with a Nucleus in my rack, a USB DAC is the way to go.
I myself have a USB DAC, Its not all down to the DAC …the Render/server, switch and USB cable play a good part in the final outcome
Bill, I’m sorry but audiophile sales jargon aside there’s no reason why a core connected to my dac and a streamer connected to the dac will sound any different.
I used to be hugely into hifi too, tweakery and cables and then realised how much of it was expectation bias. I did some reading on the research behind expectation bias and it’s amazing what perceived differences we can pick up based on preconceptions.
If you spend more on x than y, then x sounds better. I used to have mains filtration, fancy mains cables, fancy digital cable, supports and a terrifying box count.
Reality is… bits are bits, data is data, and how it gets to your dac doesn’t matter. A streamer may be prettier, may even me mechanically quieter, but it won’t sound different.
It’s funny that people never like hearing this, and those that believe won’t be turned. But getting over the hifi nonsense and just buying kit that was good enough for the job has saved me thousands of pounds.
I’m not saying they don’t. Personally, I swear by my Chord Sarum Super ARAY USB cable. Other’s may not. And that’s absolutely fine.
But get it ‘right’, and with reference to the OP’s question, IMO there is no need at all for a networked streamer when you intend to connect a USB DAC directly to a Nucleus.
We’re not really going to go down the rabbit-hole of “ethernet switches affect the SQ” are we?
Ok David if thats what you believe. Placebo (if thats what you are trying to refer to) works both ways. Theres also lots of information out there that tells you that these parts can and do make difference.
Sounds like you are adamant that they dont anyway.
That would be REALLY off-topic!
Well bill, having worked in IT for 20
Years, I can’t Imagine what trauma would be caused if USB and network cables started transmitting 1’s and 0’s differently depending on how much money we spent on them. It would be utter mayhem.
It’s amazing that in a hugely noisy (electrically and RF wise) comms room with over 100 servers, thousands of hard drives and more network and optical connection than you can shake a stick at, that no data ever goes missing or is corrupted.
Yet for some reason domestic users think a few metres of copper between a usb socket and a dac can possibly make any difference.
It’s almost concerning
You have said it yourself. You have a very expansive cable (nice btw) and swear you hear the difference, you believe but others will not…but you have decided that its all up to the DAC…but others belive (and can prove…just like the cable) that it does.
You system probaly sounds great, im not knocking it at all, but to tell someone that nothing but the DAC has an impact on belief only isnt good advice really
I’ve not had expensive cables in my system for years. I use a USB cable that came out of the box of an HP monitor. Seems to work perfectly well.
Edit: I’ll try to find a fantastic article I found a few years back about USB Audio. The guy had in one hand a fancy high end cable and in the other a horrid contraption he made with various cheap usb cables, passed through a couple of cheap USB hubs, total exceeding all USB length recommendations.
He compared the waveforms of the original audio File to the one received with both cable types. No surprise… they were indistinguishable.
massive difference on receiving the 0s & 1s for work data. Anyway, if thats what you believe, brilliant.
Hi end music is completely different. Lots of good reading out there stating this
not saying it doesnt, but adding better elements improve performance
There’s a lot of fiction and fantasy, for sure, whether good writing or not.
Heres something from another thread fro the maker of the Antipodes units re SQ
The CX is not constrained in terms of power running Roon Server. Many comments here seem to be referring to the DX, CORE or EX products. The CX handles all DSP functions including native DSD processing - we just ask that you use multi-threading. By running four desktop-level cores, in parallel but at rates where the CPU is idling, we get much better sound. The sound quality difference is very noticeable in the higher frequencies. We were much less impressed with the sound of running one Core flat out, which is what you need to do if you turn multi-threading (which Roon calls ‘parallelize’) off. Some of our competitors don’t think that the server design can affect the sound quality so they do it differently. Only you can decide.
I never said that.
What I did say to the OP is that IMO, it would be better to connect the Nucleus directly to a USB DAC, rather than put a streamer in the mix. IMO, of course.
Of course they’d say that. They have a financial interest in doing so, as do retailers and reviewers and magazines.
An audiophile network is a horrific waste of money. Modern tcp/ip networking has so many mechanisms to ensure 100% accuracy from end to end, not 99.999% but 100%. Any network can do this, even the cheapest. To suggest otherwise would technically be lying.
Yeah @Jacques_Distler I’m out on this one! I’d hoped having been away from hifi forums for a few years that things would have moved on.
Sad that in 2019 there’s still so much false mystique around audio, most of which is completely without evidence. But relies on a network of companies who need each other to exist.
I’m stepping away from this and any other topics that cover this ground, or I might pop a blood vessel
