Why is streaming sounding better than music played through my DAC? I'm confused.....

[One and a half]

Agreed and good points. I think there is some looming consensus that Ethernet is a superior digital interface versus USB at the ground level. I would love to see measurements of this stuff.

 

Both USB and Ethernet or even wireless are suitable for audio transmissions on their own. The difficulty, as always, is the interface of the transmission protocol to when the device digests the data.

 

There's no magic bullet here, just a lot of hard work and a challenge to engineers and designers. Have a read if you can of the 6moons review of the Nagra DAC. That device was built from available and proven parts, such as the Amereno USB receiver, heavily modified at that, then adding their own technology for the output stage, plus a mix of Koch engineering. That DAC sells for just under EUR20k and it decodes PCM and DSD BTW.

 

The SQ that we hear now is always subject to improvement and depends very much on the flow of data control from one device to the other. With digital, it's even more critical than with analog when thrown in the deep end with timing.

 

As always, it's the implementation that's important, the issue of the protocol is a secondary issue, I don't think that Ethernet would be superior over USB or vice versa. I would be happy with either, provided the SQ at the end made my toes tap.

 

And that's before we talk about the software

[tranz]

Both USB and Ethernet or even wireless are suitable for audio transmissions on their own. The difficulty, as always, is the interface of the transmission protocol to when the device digests the data.

 

There's no magic bullet here, just a lot of hard work and a challenge to engineers and designers. Have a read if you can of the 6moons review of the Nagra DAC. That device was built from available and proven parts, such as the Amereno USB receiver, heavily modified at that, then adding their own technology for the output stage, plus a mix of Koch engineering. That DAC sells for just under EUR20k and it decodes PCM and DSD BTW.

 

The SQ that we hear now is always subject to improvement and depends very much on the flow of data control from one device to the other. With digital, it's even more critical than with analog when thrown in the deep end with timing.

 

As always, it's the implementation that's important, the issue of the protocol is a secondary issue, I don't think that Ethernet would be superior over USB or vice versa. I would be happy with either, provided the SQ at the end made my toes tap.

 

And that's before we talk about the software

 

Thanks for your insight One and a half.

 

In my searches the following from Cisco was interesting if thinking about using wireless. Especially #16 likely comes close when streaming audio to a renderer or DAC.

 

20 Myths of Wi-Fi Interference - Cisco

[One and a half]

Thanks for your insight One and a half.

 

In my searches the following from Cisco was interesting if thinking about using wireless. Especially #16 likely comes close when streaming audio to a renderer or DAC.

 

20 Myths of Wi-Fi Interference - Cisco

 

Great pickup there, I believe Miska comes from a telecomms background, so would have a reasonable handle on voice data problems first hand. The mentioning of jitter and interference in the one paragraph implies the latter influences the former. OK, you have a good chance to isolate common mode noise (conducted noise) as the result of the transmission itself, however at the receiver end, the gobs of RF and protocol overhead would surely swamp the gains by going wireless for audio streaming.

In that case, Ethernet is a better protocol, sorry, medium.