You again are wrong. Timing in the analog domain is crucial. The digital network transfer is even BUFFERED. Do you really understand networking? I mean there are packets literally WAITING at the door to the DAC. Nobody cares if on their way there were some timing differences.
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Even if this is true, what difference could it possibly make? Data is sent from one device, received at another, then buffered. It doesn’t even matter if the packets turn up in right order, let alone with ‘very short latencies’. Audio data is not the same thing as music - it’s just data, like any other data.
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I’m sure to be able to do it blindfolded for 10 mHz synchronization of the EtherRegen with the other devices of the setup. The difference is clear in this case.
Regarding the difference between the upgraded Netgear, and the non-upgraded Netgear, the difference is tiny. However, if you could play both sounds simultaneously, and switch between them, you’ll hear the difference of sonic timbre. I noticed the difference through sessions in which I listened vocal, and to piano performances.
I have both switches, and I compared them more than once.
Sure, in theory, there are buffers, and there should be no difference… But in practice, there’s one, though it is very small.
EDIT
But this experience is related to a €20 Netgear that is one of the cheapest models. With a proffesional or an industrial switch, there maybe no difference at all.
Question for the audiophile networkers: You must be consuming solely local files or CDs, right? Since it’s very unlikely there is an unbroken audiophile network chain say from Qobuz or Tidal to your home. Right?
Otherwise I must conclude there would happen the same miracle as with these audiophile power cords …
PS1: And how would the local files haven been delivered to your home. I hope not by internet??
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There is absolutely no physical or objective evidence to back up this claim, just marketing hype and the subjective experiences of people who have bought expensive networking gear. Don’t you think, given that the internet is predicated upon the idea of a completely reliable system of data transfer, that somebody might have noticed if there was something odd going on? Maybe some computer scientists, or engineers, or physicists, or other related professionals? Surely, if your claims were true, one or more of them might have noticed this totally weird and inexplicable phenomenon?
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Sure, TCP/IP is 100% reliable, and there’s no loss of DATA. I don’t discuss that at all.
But when you stream sound, time domain errors have an importance for the regularity of the streaming, and of the sound quality, though there’s not a single bit that is lost.
And I do not advocate expensive audiophile switches.
I just told you about my own experience with a €20 Netgear switch, that is one of the cheapest models on Amazon, and is built with cheap electronic components.
With a better model, a professional or an industrial switch, there might be no difference at all, if you upgrade the capacitors that power its synchronization clocks.
But you’re not streaming ‘sound’, you’re transmitting and receiving data, so ‘time domain errors’ are totally irrelevant.
Take a look at the following video (I use this to explain the internet to the year 8 computer science pupils I teach). In the video it talks about transferring data - in this instance, a web page - but try to imagine it’s talking about streaming music data from something like Qobuz or Tidal. As you’ll see, timing is completely irrelevant.
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Need an artist to make this a painting.
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Can you do me a favour and get the speech turned up a tad as it usually gets too lost in the mix for my taste.
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Honestly, I really would like some answers here. No streamers among you?
Please stop writing about networking if you do not understand how it works.
Ref. OSI model
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I’ve just had a quick look at Ravenna. It’s irrelevant. To quote the website, “RAVENNA is an open solution for transmitting Audio over IP.” Audio, not audio data, … audio. This is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
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Check better. The Ravenna protocol streams audio DATA, from a server to a streamer, just like RAAT, UPNP, NAA… (It has nothing to do with analog sound.)
It is also used for the streaming of video DATA in professional facilities.
Exactly. Ravenna extends the real time audio domain and its timing challenges over TCP/IP.
Again you are confusing topics.
Exactly right. The time domain that matters is contained and defined precisely in the data itself, so the packet delivery time domain doesn’t matter, as long as your DAC is working correctly.
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In real-time, as best I can tell.
Wrong. RAAT is not a real-time streaming protocol. It gets the data from A to B. Timing is irrelevant.
Ravenna is not the only one.
There’s a Japanese TCP/IP protocol for audio DATA streaming whose name is Diretta. It works in an asynchronous connection over the LAN between the Host and the Target, similar to the USB connection between a computer and a DAC. I use it to stream with Roon and all my other players.
And Diretta improves greatly the sound quality on the same LAN. The improvement is similar to an upgrade of the audio system.
Check on Audiophile Style the thread of GentooPlayer, and you’ll how enthusiastic were all the users were Diretta was introduced to this Linux distribution in the beginning of this year.
Networking is a solved problem!
Do not fall for solutions to problems that do not exist.
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Well it appears that certain individuals either missed my earlier post or just decided to ignore it totally.
Whichever we now have to resort to slow mode to try and restore civility.
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