Benefit of "High End" Streamers?

USB Audio Class 2 with asynchronous isochronous transfer is clocked by the D/A conversion clock in the DAC. It tells the upstream device to send more or less data based on it’s buffering status. The D/A conversion clock is the only thing that drives this. What ever other clocks are involved in this are asynchronous to the USB clock and are involved in transfer speeds exceeding the audio rates by way more than 10x.

What comes to USB sources and relation to DAC output are unrelated to such other clocks and more related to avoiding analog domain pollution of ground links or voltage rails when the DAC in question doesn’t possess galvanic isolation for it’s USB implementation. You can use USB isolators for such cases to clean up the USB. This has nothing to do with digital side implementation or clocks and everything to do with analog signal design of USB and PCB layout design.

Putting I2S on a cable is bad idea in my opinion, and the existing de-facto “standards” have clock at wrong side of the link. Since it should be at the DAC side, while these “standards” put it on the source side, recreating same problems that we had on S/PDIF and AES/EBU in the past. Requiring PLL clock recovery at the DAC side.

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The best streamer I have heard was the Aqua LinQ which was connected via I2S to the dac. As I understood the dealer, the clock was given by the streamer/ source to the dac.
Meaning: I guess this is all theoretical talk in this thread, and in the end it depends on the implementation. Particularly newer products that combine streamer/source and a very good clock do have a fantastic result on sq. Another example is the Grimm Mu1 which sounds fabulous.

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My take on standardised connections types means we can use any manufacturers equipment with others and they’ll play nicely with one another.

@Kevin_Welsh, your website says it all for me, and a number of us have expressed this on this thread already.

“It’s easy when you’re in the audio business to forget to listen. Sure, we’re A-B testing components, sub-assemblies, even resistors from time to time. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I mean listening. Really listening.

Listening to our gut, and not the latest marketing hype. Listening to our customers, or potential customers, to hear what they want and need.

And listening to the music, instead of listening to the gear.”

Perfect wording @Stephen_Horvath :clap::+1:

With my workplace related hearing issue my current setup gives me great pleasure (also the wife isn’t nagging me about boxes and cables so my hearing isn’t getting worse from her).

Listen to the music my fellow Roonies and enjoy.

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This is like the ethernet and power cables threads.
It’s going nowhere, where the discussion about high end streamers?

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I suggest the following
Take your seat up and go to the shop where you can plug it in and listen to High end streamer. After listening, you will know the difference.
But yes, it is hefty pricetag

I just bought the Innuos statement after having had the mini MK2.
Already in the first 30 seconds, I was close to tears
But this only makes sense on high end systems.
On normal systems of a few thousand dollars it doesn’t.

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Phil, I think that’s because there’s no such thing as a “high-end” streamer. There are streamers that work, and streamers that don’t work. The digital world is like that. That’s why there’s no “high-end” Ethernet switches or cables, and no “high-end” power cables.

Makers of luxury goods would always like you to believe that their egregiously overpriced products are somehow “high” end, somehow “better” than the more plebian commonplace reasonable-priced equivalents, but that term really has no meaning. Sometimes the luxury good is less functional than the mass-market version!

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A very important observation.

I got the same SQ running RopieeeXL with a Pi 4 Model B as endpoint as Innuos statement. And that was with the standard 10 eur powersupply. I did try the Ferrum Hypsos LPS on the Pie and it didn’t make any SQ improvement in my system.

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This may interest you all.

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And what is this supposed to show? That you have functioning tear ducts?
It strikes me as foolhardy to fork up close to 14000 € based on an emotional response to … yes, what exactly. Can’t be the streamer alone, as you also need a DAC, preamp/amp, and speakers, all set up in a particular room, and you listening to it all in a particular mood. The mood is important, and an experienced salesperson will know how to get a potential customer into the right mood.

Personally, should I feel like shedding a few fears, I’d chop up an onion or two. And to go even cheaper: just thinking of buying a high-end streamer, which I consider to be a useless product, and my needlessly decimated bank account will also do the trick for me.

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Hey @Kevin_Welsh,

Thanks for joining in the conversation. Can you please update your user profile to comply with our Community requirements for industry professionals?

It’s unclear to other users that your comments reinforce claims relating to your products. Thanks! :+1:t2:

Secondly - another biased ‘listening’ setting with the result that could be expected.

Hi Graeme,
I have built many streamers and A/B blind tested with high-end branded only streamers (OK circa $3,000+.) When I DIY spent circa $1,500 on RPi based products, LPSs, a good DDC, 7” touch screen, machined Ali case and some home-made cables etc, Ropieee . I could not hear the difference at that price point ($1500 against $3000.) Another outcome was I have a $10,000 streamer/DAC combo and my DIY streamer bettered the streamer side and now have my $1,500 DIY in its place yet using the DAC side only.

I even made some over the top HDD chases/filters/anti-vibration etc and that over a standard USB 2.0 cheap 2.5” drive = Again, I could not hear the difference in the digital domain.

I have some reference Chord Kit and Wilson Benesch ACT speaker – which too me are end-game! (did I really say that! … am taking up-grade-itis medicine at the mo)
Using cheap products around a RPI you can hear a lesser difference against my $1,500 DIY one.

My takeaway after spending tooo much £$£$ on tooo many streamer projects is that you do not need to spend a lot to get great QS from a RPI based streamer setup (the DDC part seemed key to me and the RPI was a great performer when partnered well.)

Spending on a better Amp and speakers gives you way more bang per buck IMHO.

This is just my experience. We all hear things differently. I was biased towards more $ in the engineering might be best, but for streamers not for me.

…do not get me started on DACs :wink:

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I feel your post was rude to @Florian_Theuer :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
I feel an apology is due.

I’m intrigued as to what the rest of @Florian_Theuer system is, and the system they auditioned the Innuos Statement on.

Music can bring out our emotions and it could be that the song choice, as well as a highly revealing system made a beautiful piece of music more striking to the listener.

I find beautiful pieces of music can sound better at louder volumes and not just on different systems.

People’s choice to spend lots of money on our hobby is personal choice. I am not jealous of those who have more money than me. You can buy what you want and I won’t insult you for it.

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Marco was perhaps a little direct, but Florian’s post niggled me too. It’s the inference that high $$$$ = good sound qaulity and that only spending a few thousand means your hi-fi isn’t good enough to hear the subjective difference between a normal and a high-end streamer.

It’s the same old “highly resolving system” argument peddled by those who like to think they’ve bought a membership to an exclusive club.

No one has defined what they mean by a highly resolving system, though it is always inferred to have to cost a great deal of money.

It’s very easy to measure whether a system is highly resolving, but the “golden-eared” subjectivists excoriate measurements because more often than not, the measurements are at odds with their beliefs.

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Cables are very simple (as compared to a streamer). There’s no software and arguably very few ways to implement it. It’s fairly easy to map out the theoretical values that would lead to a perfect cable. The connectors need a tight fit with low electrical resistance. The optimal values for impedance and capacitance can be determined. There are a few other aspects (skin effect) to consider (or not) as well. Once a cable is “perfect”, though, it can be ignored. A cable cannot make music sound more accurate than using a “perfect” cable. And any 2 “perfect” cables should sound the same.

In the real world, can we achieve a perfect cable? Can a $3 power cord be a “perfect” cable? What about $30? Or $300?

When it comes to streamers, we have much more complexity to deal with.

Unlike cables with essentially 1 viable implementation (termination + wire + insulation), streamers offer at least 2 radically different implementations: USB Output -vs- Digital Audio Signal (I2S, AES/EBU, S/PDIF, etc.) Output. There are also other concerns like the underlying operating system, clocks, clock distribution, and software drivers. Plus, how the data gets there (RAAT, NAA, UPnP, local storage, etc.)

I hope we are all still in agreement up to this point.

A DAC accepting a signal from a streamer via a USB connection at a minimum must:

  1. unpack the USB packets
  2. buffer that data
  3. clock that data to create an I2S signal (some DACs use other approaches)
  4. pass that I2S signal to the DAC chip(s) (some DACs use other approaches)

A DAC accepting a signal from a streamer via an I2S connection at a minimum must:

  1. pass that I2S signal to the DAC chip(s) (some DACs use other approaches)

I did say “at a minimum”.

I’m not sure exactly what the OP means by “high-end” streamer.

One benefit of a streamer device with an output other than USB (does this make it high-end?), assuming your DAC has the matching input, is that you can listen for yourself to determine if the cost of that device is worth it.

A Challenge: try using various devices you have lying around as your streamer and connect them to your DAC via USB. (Raspberry Pi, Laptop, Desktop, Nucleus, etc.) If one ever sounds different from another, you have your answer. If not, by all means, use the device you like best: be it the cheapest or the prettiest or the smallest or the biggest.

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The way I understood Florian’s post is that a 14000k streamer will sound at its best on a system made up of similar priced equipment (which I believe many will agree this is towards high end) than it would on a system of a few thousand.

I feel what was wrote was spot on. I await @Florian_Theuer to confirm if my interpretation is correct.

My main system, now, are a pair of Sonos Fives. Lifestyle choice, but when setup well and Trueplay applied I like the way my music choices sound.

If I were allowed to sell my children and wife I’d purchase a pair of ATC SMC150ASL Pro and the Chord setup (very expensive to me) I heard a good few years ago. It sounded truly amazing.

My pair of Sonos Fives £1000 vs the above £45000 setup, the difference is clearly audible.

Would I feed a RPi into a £45000 system, yes. Would I expect it to sound better or the same as a £8000+ streamer, no.

For high sums of money I’d expect (demand) the highest quality components were chosen.

I lack such an expensive system so cannot comment.

When I use Tidal through the Sonos app, it doesn’t sound as good as Tidal via Roon. So, my take is a streamer can affect SQ.

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I think I’d say those are three radically different outputs: USB (and not just “Output”, but USB Audio), I2S (a one-way host-clocked protocol designed to be run over busses, not cables), and the others (AES and S/PDIF basically being the same oversimplified early oneway host-clocked protocol). Aside from that, all in agreement up to that point, yes.

Then you describe two different approaches to building a DAC, but without drawing any conclusions from the comparison. Both approaches have pros and cons.

What answer? So they sound different – which one sounds better? Oops, wait, but streamers aren’t about sound, which is the core mismatch to this discussion – they are about data delivery. To determine which streamer does data dellivery best, you need test instruments, not ears.

Even if they don’t sound different, this is probably a good idea, don’t you think? :slight_smile:

Thanks Grame for pointing this out. Very disingenuous on Kevin’s part. I didn’t know he’s just plugging stuff from their site in here:

  • I2S Output: The native language spoken by DAC chips is I2S. So that’s where we started. I2S means audio without translation, and if you haven’t heard it, you haven’t heard digital.

If you’re not a cyborg with direct I2S input to your brain, you haven’t heard digital.

There seems to be no end to reselling of digital by elevating hardware implementation details to “features”.

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That isn’t the way it works though. It’s about performance, not just price. Price is just as simplistic a way of looking at these things as measurement only. And money doesn’t guarantee performance any more than measurements guaranteeing a pleasant sounding amp.

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