Benefit of "High End" Streamers?

Audio Gear Talk
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To be fair, I was quoting you as the OP. What would you like me to call a streamer purpose built vs. anything with an ethernet jack and a USB port which understands USB Audio Class 1/2? You asked the question then proceed to tell those, trying to give you an answer, that the thing you asked about doesn’t exist? No benefit to you doesn’t mean no benefit to anyone. But maybe I misunderstood the question? If you don’t really want an answer it is time to ask a mod to lock the thread. Those of us intrigued by the answer will take our balls and go play elsewhere. No harm done there.

This is a universal truth. You can make good and great performance better though.

Absolutely. Kind of blows me away what people are willing to sell. Some of it looks really good though. :slight_smile: I’m just too utilitarian I guess.

I don’t think it’s ironic. I think it’s Schiit responding to customers who requested better measuring electronics and Schiit delivered. Schiit started posting their own test results years ago so why not send it out to ASR? He’s going to get a copy from a customer anyway. Schiit really has nothing to hide and they are brutally honest about it. They are one of the very few, if not only, companies that acknowledge that some people prefer better measuring gear and some people prefer listening to worse measuring gear; they make both. It’s why their flagship DAC comes in 3 varieties.

This is kind of a painful thing to read. It shows a limited experience with swapping components. Or do you just mean the digital side of the playback chain? If you’re just talking digital then I agree but we don’t listen to digital and, eventually, a digital thing has to touch an analog thing and those two things can influence each other. Again, testing digital components in isolation doesn’t give any real indication of what they will sound like in a system; because on their own they don’t produce anything we can hear. (unless of course they test really poorly but that just isn’t the case for modern gear)

Yes, but people still love it and it wins awards. Maybe we’re testing the wrong thing? Questioning the testing is part of the science as well. I don’t own one. It’s not even on my list of DACs I’d want to own. But, there is no question that people do love the signal coming out the back of this thing.

Again, this is kind of inflammatory isn’t it? There are people who truly love and put this in a category of best DAC. Are you accusing those people of conspiring with a criminal? This isn’t Theranos, its residential audio. The results, ultimately, don’t matter except to the listener and if the listener is wrong they are wrong in isolation. It won’t impact their health. In fact, it may actually benefit their health because they are happy. No reason to pee in their cheerios.

Won’t happen; agree with you here.

Again, let’s leave this to the listener. I really don’t understand the crusade to keep fools with their money. :slight_smile: We could use more happy people in this world even you think they are fools.

I think you’ll find, especially if you talk to people who work in audio stores trying to sell this stuff, that this results in a very sterile and boring experience for the listener. While accurate, maybe, it’s not something they are excited to buy. I would recommend if you want “well-designed, well-measuring equipment and put that together” you need to look at the pro-audio side of things. They have a much better appreciation for “accurate”. In fact, you’ll find professionals who depend on accuracy for their livelihood.

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Thank you.

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Let’s reign things in a little, shall we?

I asked a serious question about “high-end” streamers. I was curious about what could be the difference between a multi-thousand pound/dollar/whatever your currency streamer and a low-cost streamer.

No one has managed to give me a rational, scientific explanation. Lots of testiculating as to why a “high-end” streamer sounds better than a cheap one.

Then we have a vendor of such products waxing lyrical about the benefits of I2S digital transport (and extolling the “virtues” of his own products) without first disclosing his commercial interests, as is required by the Community Rules.

No, it doesn’t. It comes down to tiredness from trying to piece together a decent sounding system based on the recommendations of the popular audiophile press.

Ah, yes. Sell them something which sounds great in the shop. And when you take it home and listen to it longer-term, the listening fatigue sets in. Then you’re off on the upgrade path again…

I already have. Just read the bio in my profile.

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I’ve been here for a while. When I joined, I met the requirements to play in the forum (My about me states I own Musica Pristina). We built one of the early RoonReady devices. At some point along the way, the requirements may have changed to add your company name to the “title” field in your profile as @jamie pointed out to me. My profile doesn’t have a “title” field. So I asked @jamie to help me become compliant again, and Jamie did.

I don’t appreciate your continued insinuation of my nefarious intent.

I’ll still take you at your word that your post was really an attempt to understand something that you didn’t fully grasp at the time you asked it. And since you elect to keep the thread open, I’ll assume you are still looking for an answer.

Moving along…

There are many benefits. Pride of ownership. Aesthetics. Access to tech support. Not wasting time tinkering with mini-computers or configuration screens. (Seriously, just use the USB from your Dell laptop). Brand loyalty. The list of “soft” benefits is long. These may not be perceived as benefits to you. That’s up to you to decide. But if they are benefits to anyone, they are benefits.

I understand your question wasn’t about these types of benefits, though.

A less emotionally charged (dare I say scientific) way to ask your question might be this:

“Can any two bit-perfect sources sound different in any way, assuming the entire rest of the signal chain remains the same?”

Is that a fair re-write of your question?

  • If the answer is “NO”, then there are no high-end or low-end streamers as far as sonic aspects are concerned.
  • If the answer is “YES”, then somebody has some explaining to do.

As for definitive science of a high-end streamer sounding different, we’re not there yet. No scientist has published the research (as far as I am aware) that can tell us the one (or 20) things to measure that will predict with statistical significance that an appropriate portion of the population would agree there was a “sonic benefit” to one front end digital design versus another.

(But you already knew this, didn’t you? I don’t think this is what you’re asking, either.)

From a science perspective, this leaves us in the land of Hypotheses and Theorizing. Unless, of course, we simply reject every claim from test subjects who state they hear differences as bias or ■■.

One pesky data point we have to deal with is this: When asked: “Do these two bit-perfect sources sound different in any way even when the entire rest of the signal chain remains the same?”

Many people are saying: “YES”

@Graeme_Finlayson, if you would like some feedback, from myself and likely other people who know even more than me, regarding the possibly influences of science here, I think it’s time to close this thread and start a new one with a more “scientific” question. It may lead to some interesting (and testable) hypotheses. It may not.

But that in itself is science.

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Some people believe that they can measure the amount of jitter in a SPDIF stream, and that a lower number correlates with superior sonics: Singxer SU-6 DDC / USB Audio Bridge Measurements - GoldenSound

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Well, we may end up with a more interestingly phrased question, or we may not. I think this one is pretty interesting already.

Let me say that I am shocked – shocked! – that a vendor of a high-priced streamer would advocate shutting down a discussion of whether “high end” streamers are real or not.

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Last time I was

I accidentally made contact with AC mains. :zap:

@Bill_Janssen this type of response is why I think a new thread based on science is a good idea. I’m not sure what your response is… sarcasm?

I’m not running from the subject. I literally invited the OP to a public discussion. I’d love to have a real scientific discussion.

But, instead, I have to waste my “hour” defending myself against these attacks.

The ball is in your court… or actually, in anyone’s. (If I start the thread, I have nefarious motives)

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You can measure jitter in anything that is locked against a clock. Jitter is nothing more than the deviation of something against the theoretical constant. Since no clock is perfect there is always jitter. In digital we simply need the jitter to be small enough not to cause bit errors, missed data, etc.

SPDIF is relatively slow so fairly easy to measure jitter. Is high jitter audible? I don’t know what’s audible* but its certainly measurable. But, keep in mind, not all SPDIF interfaces are created equal and some show higher jitter than others just by the nature of the mechanics to change a 1 to 0 / 0 to 1.

*Living through the “CD transport days” jitter was the constant thing referenced for why one transport was better than another. However, the majority of those transports used SPDIF interfaces which forced the DAC to slave off the transport. Why a transport needed very low jitter made a lot of sense in those situations. When the DAC controls the clock… the things we learned from the CD transport days can probably be thrown out the window. But… again, I don’t build this stuff. Most of the interfaces we use today have changed who the clock master is and that, seems, to be a good thing.

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Four people in a room that can blind test yours against a cheaper one and let’s see the results. Scientific enough for me.

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That’s a double edged sword. For me “pride of ownership”/“brand loyalty” are benefits to the brand, and can be weaponized against the consumer. By your logic if they’re downsides to me (I’m anyone) then they’re downsides :wink:

I agree about the others though, access to good technical support been the primary benefit in my eyes. I’m an irredeemable tinkerer myself so tech supports cheating :wink: That said if I was to total up all my tinkering hours and multiply by my hourly rate I bet there’s a substantial sum in theory. You may have a point… :thinking:

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Not completely. A digital device needs an internal clock and can’t rely solely on the clock recovered from a synchronous interface. The best in can do is synchronize the internal clock with the interface rate. Thus, the influence of the interface rate cannot be fully eliminated. That is the case of a DAC rendering an S/PDIF stream. The only time a DAC has full clock control is with USB.

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Of course it’s a very good idea to get scientific about all of this. What does that entail, though?

One of the (many) thorny issues in philosophy of science debates is the question of the relation between observation (O) and theory (T). What happens when the two clash? How do/ should we resolve the conflict?
If O (observation data) is right, then T is wrong (either partially, with some readjustments needed, or totally, which means that it needs to be discarded and replaced by a better T)
If O is wrong, then nothing needs to happen relative to T (which doesn’t mean that T is right, as other O may prove it wrong – that’s why we say that a scientific theory is true only to the extent that it hasn’t been falsified, and each non-falsification of course lends strength to the theory)

Now, in the case of streamers, let’s hypothesise that O shows that there are differences between THem. The T that no differences could possibly exist, as long as a perfect bit transfer is assured, would then have to be modified/ discarded.

And here’s the rub. Before we can put our trust in O, we need to make sure that O is indeed correct. Because wrong O will put into doubt a perfectly valid T, and this to no avail, other than making a lot of people lose a lot of time. Much ado about nothing, indeed!

In the case of audio, the only way to arrive at a minimal certitude that O is correct is through a controlled listening test. So, before coming up with possible scientific/ engineering explanationS as to why two streamers sound different, we need to make sure that they do indeed sound different.

I think that’s all pretty basic. And yet, and yet … no manufacturer of high-end streamers (because it’s that category that tends to make quite improbable claims about enhanced SQ) backs up their claims with controlled listening tests. (I haven’t even mentioned measurements yet, which in this case areN’T absolutely needed.) I wonder why.

So if you want to do science, do it right. Set up a controlled listening test, with the relevant protocols vetted and rigorously applied, and if those tests should yield a statistically significant result, with some streamers outplaying others, we move on to the explanatory stage and begin to tweak our T.

As this hasn’t been done, I’ll remain deeply sceptical.

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As this hasn’t been done, by either ‘side’ of the argument, I’ll remain highly skeptical that there isn’t a difference in sound between streamers, esp going from lower to higher quality (i.e an RPI with a cheap smps vs an opticalRendu with a bespoke LPS). I’ll esp remain skeptical as I’ve heard the difference, just not in a DBT. Theories are important, but imo don’t trump experiential confirmation (and no, I’m not hearing things, delusional, or expectation biased).

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I can see why this might be a more interesting question for some, but it seems to me to be a misstatement of the original thread. More to the point would be something like this:

“Given that all streamers deliver the same bits to the next step in the auditory chain, can there exist a significantly ‘better’ way of doing that, that might be termed ‘high end’?"

@Kevin_Welsh lists a few possible advantages:

I suppose “brand loyalty” might be seen as a benefit, though I personally have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

Let me say a bit about science, too.

We hear that, and we aren’t rejecting it. We’re formulating hypotheses to possibly explain the observations. Unfortunately, the observations are not reported in any form that allows us to organize them. Different effects are reported, the details of the test setup are either never described or only partially described, etc. And of course, many hypotheses are possible, so part of the process is try to choose both the most probable, ideally one which would both fit in with what is known about the world, and allow us to carry out further tests which could falsify it.

When I consider all of this, the hypothesis that comes to the top is double-barreled.

First off, it seems probably that certain streamers with unfortunate electrical characteristics can indeed cause sound changes in DACs with poorly engineered inputs. Things can go wrong, particularly with things like ground loops. The differences being heard may in fact be real, in some cases, and could be measured if one would take the time, and would like to prove the point. I’ll also lump in here the use of bad cables which may also introduce unfortunate electrical characteristics, but have nothing to do with the streamer, only with the poor engineering of the DAC.

My other barrel is that, given the known physics of digital data transmission, it seems probable that most of these observations are in fact illusory, caused by some other facet of the mind of the listener. We could disprove this barrel of the hypothesis by actually recording the sound in the room, and seeing if there are changes, so this is a testable hypothesis that could be falsified, if one would care to test it. Even properly organized blind tests would suffice to falsify it. But until that happens, it seems to me the likely explanation of these no doubt real observations. The hypothesis that somehow we don’t know enough physics to properly understand what’s going on hardly seems warranted.

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Hello @garye! I’ve been doing this for years.

More importantly, my address is on my website and I’m glad to participate.

The major challenge will be to get everyone to agree that we’ve properly controlled for outside influences, glad to go into more detail here when appropriate.

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Well said (although a bit long). When people say they hear differences in a sighted test and demand an explanation, I argue that no explanation is warranted, since the results cannot be trusted. Trying to explain such findings would only amount to speculation, which can easily be countered by yet more speculation. There is of course no benefit in this.

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I’m not insinuating any nefarious intent, just that there was a degree of bias in your posts and your interest wasn’t openly declared. It wasn’t outwardly clear that you were an equipment vendor when you joined the discussion without one having to dig into your profile and then make a trip to your website. I’m not saying there was anything nefarious in that, more a lack of transparency, which has since been resolved, thank you.

My original question was a serious one, and having read everything here, I’ll give my take on things.

My deduction from everything I’ve read is that a “better” streamer can make a difference when feeding a less than ideally implemented DAC.

The degree of influence will obviously depend on the DAC and on the capabilities of the streamer.

For a well-implemented DAC, which has measures in place to compensate for a less than optimally clocked datastream, I don’t think whether the streamer is a £200 RPi or a £10k Grimm makes a blind bit of difference.

Part of the reason I chose a Benchmark Media DAC is that they state that jitter-related sidebands will be kept below -144 dB provided input jitter stays within very generously defined limits. The levels of noise and distortion place them unquestionably below the threshold of hearing making it an undeniably transparent Digital to Analogue Converter.

One could be cynical and take the view that “well, as the manufacturer, they would say that, wouldn’t they”. Perhaps, but independent tests of their gear measure out at least as well as their claimed specs. And every manual for their products comes with a very detailed set of measurements, so I trust their claims. Furthermore, Benchmark Media eschews expensive interconnect, speaker and mains cables and recommends well constructed cables made with industry grade bulk cable and quality (Neutrik) connectors.

Many other manufacturers make ridiculous claims without a single measurement in sight.

I’d willingly partake in a properly conducted double-blind study to to be proven either right or wrong.

If I’m right, then aside from speakers, I’ve reached my endgame.

If I’m wrong, I’m back to the drawing board.

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Hey gang, we’ve had some complaints that forum members are engaging in thinly veiled ad hominem attacks in this thread - yet again.

We’re going to need to take and clean things up before unlocking the thread. Please remember to be civil and challenge the argument, not attack the individual making it.

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