Nuc sound differences

Or a salt block.

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Didn’t this response (from your perspective) answer your posted question? You hear a difference. Wish my hearing was that sensitive.

Hi Richard, you probably won’t reply to this as indicated but I would encourage you to seriously consider that the perceived differences are illusory. That really isn’t a criticism, we are all susceptible to this sort of thing. There are things in the audio chain that make huge differences, namely source material (much of which is pure garbage unfortunately) and loud speakers/headphones. There are clear reasons rooted in audio engineering principles why these matter, but the settled consensus in audio engineering is that linearity is what matters in electronics, and this is best judged by measuring noise and distortion. The tools to measure these have been available for years, there is no mystery. If noise and distortion are below 115 dB or so there is no reason to believe they matter. There is the odd genuinely credible engineer (such as Rob Watts-he’s quite brilliant actually) who tout theories that don’t reconcile with the scientific consensus but they are few and far between. It’s very telling that the manufacturer above replied to a polite request for him to justify his claim about his product reducing noise in the audio chain, a trivially easy thing to measure, with a generality. If you look at his website, you’ll only see recommendations from YouTube pundits, every last one a layperson lacking any experience in a field relevant to audio performance, and all monetising the promotion of myths. For me there is a genuinely interesting question as to why audio is such an outlier in this regard. I can’t think of another consumer area where manufacturers so effectively mislead their customers. To be honest I think the roon mods need to hold manufacturers to a higher standard of conduct on this forum, the post above would almost certainly fall foul of advertising standards in the U.K and doubtless elsewhere, as with this:

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/naim-audio-ltd-a15-304328.html

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Nice post, thanks.

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Sorry - a different subject - any news when Intel NUC Studio 12 Pro: Wall Street Canyon will be released?

Christmas :christmas_tree::wink:

I’m glad for not being that “sensitive”!

This way I can just enjoy discovering new music without being afraid of missing out on the last tiniest little bit of sound quality.

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It is well known and many accept as a proven fact, that power supply quality and adequate design affects strongly quality of music information. So seems logic to think that computers to deal with music flow in Room software according to their characteristics as well as power supply utilized affect SQ
But some ones say that not the power supply for a NUC does not make differences
I was thinking to buy a new Power Supply for my NUC and I stop it

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A power supply cannot change noughts to one’s, this is again someone (salesman?) applying analog concepts to digital. You don’t hear data. A linear psu in a DAC, or preamp may well make a difference, but not when the audio is being represented as 0’s and 1’s.

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Yep. A full blown audiophile streamer / nucleus (whatever computer device without any analog audio option) will produce EXACTLY the same result (a boring sequence of "1"s and "0"s combined to bytes, words, a digital audio stream) as any cheap alternative running the same software on the same OS processing the same input. Because this is how digital works. You can wish for all you want, surrender to salesmen’s **, and trick yourself into hearing imaginary things. Doesn’t change a thing about reality and facts. Deal with it. Or get ripped off by an industry with margins (especially in the high end segment) some drug dealers would like to see.

Ok but why then LINN offers an upgrade of power supply to its Majik streamer?
I will ask them if the improvement of SQ will be only noticed if you utilize the RCAAnalog outputs and not noticed if you utilized the digital outputs
Initially what I did understood is that the improvement of SQ applies to all outputs
Bits finally are electrical waves not squares and have ditter and interferences that affect the shape of the bits

Yes, but they are always clearly interpreted, and this process is buffered and checksummed.

All the data required to make the world run is never questioned, but if it’s digital audio, all kinds of strange phenomena occur… apparently :joy:

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This is important to understand for those with an anlog audio background. Of course any electrically represented data is imperfect. But that’s not what digital uses to store the bits. These are in a fraction of such a signal that can be interpreted without an error. We don’t care about the fuzzy part. In the rare case of a glitch there is another layer of data integrity - checksums.
Again - this is where you have to let analog knowledge go. Digital - within its resolution limits - is perfect.
And no silver wired linear transformer, no magic cable does improve this by the slighted. Because you cannot better perfection. Should be easy to understand.

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Yes, bits can be thought of as waves not squares, but they don’t have shapes. The shapes are simply the way the information is represented on an oscilloscope or in a graph, e.g.

When one describes bits as having shapes one is hypostatizing, and therein lies part of the problem with people treating digital information in an analog manner.

This is a good demonstration of how d/a works, and the folly of hires.

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Ok When I say are waves I try to describe that the increase of voltage which constitute a bit , that increase is what is measure and named as a bit, for sure it is seen and measured in an oscilloscope. That increase is not vertical and have a shape.That is a real fact not a concept. Then it appears what Ditter is, and the way a DAC manage the Ditter is a key factor and other factors that may produce a delay in detecting that bit, for example.
I just repeat what I have read in designers opinions.A bit for sure is not lost but way they are managed to get an analog continuos electrical wave can be affected by external factors. A DAC is not a simple commodity there are big differences in quality between DACs
The best way to get more clarification about all this is directly ask designers

This is looking for a theoretical explanation for a subjective or nonexistent phenomenon.

The way networking works is that buffering and reassembling of frames takes place on the receiving device, typically a streamer or streamer DAC.
If the frames get lost or have a failed checksum (which is very unlikely) the device requests a resend.
The receiving device reassembles the datestream into information the DAC can use to convert it to an analog signal.
When using Roon, it sends a bit perfect data stream which eventually will be used by the DAC.

In the case of sound problems/difference, it is not from the sending part aka. Roon.
It is a poorly streamer and DAC or streamer DAC combination or device.

Anomalies or problems introduced by networking or in a PC sending the data stream are unlikely due to the fail safe mechanism in place.

Thanks for response much appreciated…powering a nuc with a high quality lps for me made a huge difference…stereo, bass and treble …and clariry dramatically improved. It was jaw droppingly better… Theoretically it is difficult to understand…but it there is a wonderful difference. I can fully understand the stance that it should make no difference…to that I say just try it… The X300 deffinately sounded different…I am going to hook it back up in a month or so…once I am totally acclimatised to the nuc.

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Sorry, but I disagree with your exposition. Bits, or voltage changes, don’t have a physical shape any more than they have a color.

According to your description if the measuring instruments displayed changes in voltage by using colors, rather than a spatial representation, you would be describing bits as having accurate or inaccurate colors. That is more obviously ridiculous than saying bits (or voltage changes) have shapes.

By saying that bits (or voltage changes) have a shape, you are committing the common mistake of confusing the map of the territory with the actual territory.

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I agree it is a bad way of describing the fact that Voltage increases to name it : shape. But since the voltage increase is not inmediate, with no time taken to be increased, and to go from 0V to 0,05 volt you require a given period of time. The way to represent that increase in axe “y” and time in the axe"X" that curve representing the change of voltage it is named Shape. As well it is not only that increased voltage during a period of time, it is as well that tha level of voltage it is not exactly the same during that time.
So finally a bit it is analog to say it somehow. The disturbances that the so called “noise” (other electromagnetic perturbances) introduce in that “shape” of the bit is the cause for example that a good power suppy increases the quality of the output of the computer doing his work with the bits in the dac procces.

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