Fully agree. Upgrading my Taiko networking made a massive improvement to the sound, and I only playback locally stored files (from the Extreme HDD).
The sarcasm aside, the above statement might be right. I believe Skinnyfla would be the first to say his digital set up is not great.Thats because you have bad digital or so they say ...!
… true - it‘s very basic and I have invested about 10 times the money in analog… and I am very satisfied with the results… that‘s why I‘m getting on everyone’s nerves asking stupid questions and trying to find out which road to take to bring digital to level…
... yeah - it`s very basic... I use an LG CD - ROM to rip CDs via dBPoweramp to lossless WAV, save it on my Imac and run files with Roon as software - from there via ethernet to a usual Fritzbox and from there via ethernet to musicroom, where I have a socket for internet/ethernet... so basically thats where I pick up the signal with a mediocre ethernet cable from audioquest and run it into an Auralic Aries G1... from there it goes to the McIntosh C52 where I use the onboard DAC... not much love or effort put into it and I keep thinking whether to improve the streaming chain or just let it be and buy a decent CDP... especially as I play vinyl 80% of the time... cheers
... think I`ll just add my stuff in the sig., as most here do
I’ve also invested a lot in my vinyl rig, and it sounds superior to my digital in most cases, but at the same time I do enjoy local files and streaming, and my setup is more or less simple.
I'm running the tests on a Linux workstation connected by ethernet cable to a MikroTik hAP ac3 router, and I also have my streamer connected by ethernet cable to the MikroTik hAP ac3. My rural location has very limited celluar and broadband access. I get internet from a local company that transmits wireless from a tower to a local transmitter, and then wireless to a dish outside my house, so it's possible that this the best I can get. Most of the time, the packet loss is around 1 to 2%. The 15% loss seems to be an outlier.
There‘s no way for me to predict. It would very much depend on the quality of the various components employed and how they’re set up.
That is SO true. We’ve seen some huge improvements recently in the replay side. I imagine that similar levels of improvement are also available on the recording side. Hopefully someone, somewhere is giving it some attention.
Had never thought about a second router! If the connection between the second router and the streamer is wired (copper ethernet), I'm assuming the benefit of lower noise is preserved by its separation from the first router (for non-hifi duties)., get 2 WiFi routers, in my case they are both Asustek, power them with linear PSs (Plixir or similar). Put one of them in normal mode and another in bridge mode, so the second router is connected to the first one via wifi. Connect your server to the second router and enjoy digital. It won’t be on the analog level, but it will be very close
as an audiophile friend pointed out, these tests tell you about the ISP's delivery performance, they don't tell you anything about bottlenecks, etc. occurring in the home network.Good question. IMHO these measurements are just good to diagnose gross faults or network problems , not to rank or quantify possible audio quality. However, since long they are checked by teenagers for online real time gaming, much more exigent than stereo streaming in this aspect.
Latency depends on data path to the chosen server - so on path length and structure. For example, if we add a VPN we can expect a different latency, It is why the Taiko people "forbid" it on their server.
Thanks Rhapsody. I fully agree that YMMV, indeed YMWV, according to the status of the current network set-up you use.
@skinnyfla The Auralic has a good reputation. Do you have a sense of how good the McIntosh's onboard DAC is? I still think a simple 30-day money-back-guarantee experiment with a passive filter will tell you if the issue is network noise introduced into the network.
If I can be of any further assistance spending your hard-earned money, please let me know.The Elyse DAC is a great design and there are not many out there. As to vinyl vs digital, they are different experiences in my opinion. For years, I feel that Digital strove to reach the performance of Analog. Many will argue that it has, and some will say it surpasses digital. When doing a show, I always listen to see which is superior, digital or analog. It is typically very close, but Analog tends to provide a bigger and more natural overall sonic experience for me. The last show we did, I used a PH 9.0XT phono with Sota Cosmos, SME V arm and Ortofon Winfeld Ti cartridge. Digital was a DAC 204 feeding Analog Bridge. LS 99 pre and KWA 99 mono blocks were also used, and speakers were Acora Acoustics. Digital vs Analog was very close. On some music, I preferred vinyl, on others I preferred digital. As I say, both are valid and unique experiences.
