They just love to see you excited.
Did the youngest just shrug and say you were all hearing things?
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This is music to my ears.
I’m still not sure what precisely a “high end” streamer is. But now we can all define a higher-quality streamer as one that will tickle fewer bugs in a DAC.
And now, @Graeme_Finlayson, I hope you have found your answer. 
My DAC doesn’t have bugs, so a more expensive streamer than my RPi is unnecessary. I can pull a -120 dBFS 1 kHz tone into audibility with my system. I suspect there aren’t many systems, “high-end” or otherwise with that degree of resolution.
Maybe I should share some tracks and ask people to wind the volume up and report back what they can hear…
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This is a very good idea.
We all know that listening is (very) subjective. Basically, we prefer what we want to hear, and shut out what we do not want to hear, it is known as biased listening (aka selective listening), this listening process can lead to a distortion of facts.
I guess your family and you are not immune to it.
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Considering that the experiment was entirely subjective, I do not see a need for an explanation.
I’m currently in a process of changing my digital front end. I’ve used Linn ADSM/3 streamer/dac/pre connected directly to my active ATC’s since 2019 so there has been no need to experiment different streamers since Linn has one inbuilt. I experimented with Auralic Vega G2.1, even Mola Mola Tambaqui and while both offered great sound quality (very different from Linn), I wasn’t comfortable with the price vs performance ratios. Auralic and Mola Mola also had subpar headphone amplifiers which bothered me a lot in this price class.
After some detective work on internet, I decided to try out Holo Spring 3 with integrated preamp module and their best USB-input module, which should be SOTA. I’m happy I did, this thing sounds amazing and I believe I’ve found my new digital front end with a reasonable price tag. Based on measurements, this thing should be transparent (as should be Linn, Auralic and Mola Mola), yet they all sound different from each other. R2R-design does add its own flavor for sure.
Now I’ve driven Holo directly from my NUC 8i5 USB output and then I borrowed a iFi Zen Stream from my dealer to try out. Zen Stream seemed like a good option with great specs and reasonable price. First I thought there was a difference in favor of NUC direct but after some more testing and fiddling with iFi’s settings, I can’t say I hear any difference at all. Both options sound equally great since Holo’s ”Titanis” USB-input is extremely well designed. This is great since I want to move the NUC back in to the hallway closet where its fan and spinning HDD’s are inaudible. It can make some noise when upsampling to DSD256 with Roon DSP or HQPlayer which I’m also testing now.
Back in the day I had Naim stack with Naim DAC a the heart of the system. I used Roon (also JRMC and foobar2000) as source straight from my PC. I needed an USB bridge to make the connection between PC and Naim DAC possible. I used USB bridges all the way from the very first, or at least one of the first ones ever released, M2Tech HiFace. And improvements and developments on USB bridges were easilly audible back then. First ones weren’t even asynchronous. Later on came bridges with separate PSU’s instead of using USB-power. Then there was the question of galvanic isolation, which is a must on these things. Last one I used with Naim DAC was Mutec MC-3+ which was again a small step forward from the previous Audio GD bridge.
I do remember the discussions 10-15 years ago how digital transports shouldn’t matter and it’s only data etc. Well it certainly did matter back then. Nowadays well designed galvanically isolated USB-inputs should be able to handle pretty much any source and give great sound quality.
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Thanks. Right now I’m waiting for my zen stream to compare with going directly to dac from core M1 mini USB. As I do not have the clean usb imput that Holo with SOTA has, after your story I’m happy that I’ll try Zen stream
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And try out the ZEN stream with an iFi iPowerX or iPower Elite which will further improve SQ.
I used iPower2 first but actually bought Topping P50 linear psu for it now. It must be one of the cheapest LPSU’s out there and offers quite a lot for the price. It has double 5V/1A outputs + 15V/1A output and is built like a brick. Luckily Zen Stream accepts 15V and my switch 5V so this small LPSU can power both of them. Most importantly, I’m running out of sockets on my power strip and I save one with this solution.
SCM50ASL’s.
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@Markus_Hubner Thanks, I already have the powerX waiting (one 9v from a zen dac and one 12v from a tube headphone amp). Is so much better the elite from the powerX? Thank you
@patouskii Thanks. I’ll have a look at topping p50 linear psu
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That’s great to hear. The Elite is really another step up, how big the gain is in your setup is hard to tell. But I could lend you mine.
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Replicability is the word – you’re obviously referring to ASR. That is actually a scientific approach because test results are published. It’s up to somebody else to confirm or refute these results. By themselves, the results are not proof of anything. They’re highly suggestive, but need to be challenged. Have you challenged them? To participate in the ongoing scientific process of endless verification? Funnily enough, I never see any manufacturers of (especially) high-end gear publish counter measurements. Why is that?
What ideas exactly? The aim of a scientific hypothesis is universality. It may get things wrong, but that’s why, as you yourself point out, science is an ongoing process. It is indeed provisional, but until somebody comes along that challenges the received ideas by providing a better explanatory framework and/or test results, those received ideas (normal science, as Kuhn put it) are all we have. A scientific truth is always only true to the best of our current knowledge. Who would dispute that?
So what are you saying? Provide a better explanatory framework for why whatever it is you’re claiming should make us change our minds and/or provide a set of measurements that challenges the existing measurements. But don’t formulate empty hypotheses or appeal to the very unscientific merits of individual listening. Especially the latter, however real they are to you, is completely useless when it comes to determining the objective qualities of an electronic device.
History repeats itself. In the olden days, it was turntables that couldn’t possibly affect sound quality. Now the naysayers have moved on to digital sources.
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I’d argue that it’s the technology that’s moved on. It’s trivial to think of aspects of a turntable that would affect sound and could be improved through better engineering. Digital is a LOT more robust and that’s a challenge to some vested interests in the audiophile market. Perhaps it’s the audio domain that needs to move on?
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The existence of ASR (as it is now) proves that it is an upside down world. All of the manufacturers should publish their measurements. And they can explain why they choose the different paths. It should be a transparent market. Those people that read specs should have them provided, other that do not care just do not read them a make choices based on other factors. It just cast such a shade over the market and builds up mistrust.
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The differences here could well be due to differences in the interaction between the streamers and your DAC. They could also be due to differences in volume levelling, depending on whether the streamer design allows for any signal headroom at the output or whether it’s doing any upsamplimg…
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I’ve said this many times before. A well-designed and built DAC should be immune to pretty much anything you throw at it, whether that’s power supply noise, noise from ethernet (if you believe that’s a thing) and timing accuracy from the streamer.
If changing something upstream of your DAC produces an audible difference, then you probably need a better DAC. And by better, I mean one which has better measurements for noise rejection and jitter control, not one that’s necessarily more expensive or “higher-end”.
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