A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[fas42]

8 hours ago, aggielaw said:

 

Interesting!  Silver has long been known as much for its "speed" as for its tendency for brightness.  Perhaps this explains why the "pace, rhythm, and timing" audiophiles sometimes discuss is usually excellent with silver cables.

 

Main reason for these sorts of differences would be the corrosion compounds that always form, and the electrical behaviour of those compounds, IMO. If a connection was made using a single strand of silver, and compared to equivalent in copper, where the ends were high integrity soldered terminations, I would suggest that all the differences would vanish ...

[fas42]

On 8/24/2019 at 3:20 AM, Blackmorec said:

Quite a few of you now have implemented the ‘guidance’ found in this thread and managed to create  some really high performing systems that quite possibly exceed your previous expectations. In the meantime I’ve continued to refine my system, which is entirely off the shelf bar a couple of key mods to the network to try and achieve similar levels with I believe some degree of success. I’m just wondering if you’ve noticed that as things got better, you started to get improvements that were clear to hear but quite difficult to analyse and describe, other than a rather lame “the music sounds more real” or “everything sounds better”.  Beyond that there isn’t particularly more of anything.....it just sounds better.....more natural, more real, more alive, more vibrant, more there but almost indescribable in the usual hi-fi parlance. I can’t actually pick out what got better, just that it did and sometimes by a not trivial amount. Anyone else feeling that their recent upgrades brought great, but difficult to quantify and describe sonic improvements?

 

Yes, this is the onset of what I call convincing, or competent sound - for me, the source has always been CDs, but that is completely irrelevant to the situation - recordings are stored as digital data, somewhere, and then read by the appropriate mechanism to be delivered to the DAC; it's from here on in that things get interesting ... .

 

What the factor is in causing this perceived transformation is that all the key audible distortions are now under control; they no longer disturb the brain, and force one to constantly compensate for their presence - amongst other negatives these being too audible is the cause of, notorious, "listener fatigue" ...

 

One very useful approach is not to think that the sound "is better" - rather, that any standard that is less than that is perceptible flawed, and with some practice it becomes trivially easy to pinpoint what the poorer SQ is getting wrong - the issues "stand out like sore thumbs".

[fas42]

Just to add, that the stabilising of smoothing electros in supplies are a major part of the battle, IME too. Capacitors are a large headache in audio, and why I used to run my first good rig 24/7 - including the power amp, which idled pretty hot - money to burn, back then! 😄

 

I have found a frequent characteristic from cold switch-on of audio stuff is that it's relatively pleasant at first, then goes through a trough of ugliness, of varying depth; and finally emerges to a reasonably stable level of decent quality. My technique at times has been to hammer the setup with high energy rock, to speed up the conditioning period.