Creating ultimate signal path for Qobuz

[Cebolla]

Your reply to Davide's post appeared to be unaware that Qobuz delivers files as files too ("buy all files you want to listen to"). 

[MarcelNL]

On 11/30/2022 at 2:35 PM, Cebolla said:

Your reply to Davide's post appeared to be unaware that Qobuz delivers files as files too ("buy all files you want to listen to"). 

it's clear it was misunderstood...as far as I'm aware streaming does not deliver the complete file in one go upfront, whereas after a download of a file (any file) there is a CRC check and then you can play/use a file and it's on your system to play without network connection. When you unplug your network cable in the middle of a streamed FLAC file playing will stop after like 20 sec.

 Playing FLAC files after converting to WAV and doing so from RAM disk sounds better than playing a FLAC, better than playing direct from disk, and local files always sound better than streamed files. Optimizing the streaming chain is IMO well worth it. 

[krass]

On 11/30/2022 at 2:35 PM, Cebolla said:

Your reply to Davide's post appeared to be unaware that Qobuz delivers files as files too ("buy all files you want to listen to"). 

 

I’m no expert but AFAIK Qobuz streaming (& any streaming service) does NOT stream a SINGLE FLAC (or other) type file, so is not an identical file to a FLAC (or other) track that is downloaded.

 

Streaming will use a streaming protocol* that allows the endpoint to communicate with the streaming server. The streaming server will deliver short segments of music, typically 2-10 seconds, where each segment is a complete file for the purposes of the streaming protocol. The endpoint performs some buffering, and the task of unwrapping the segment files and joining them together. Streaming therefore delivers MANY complete files (FLAC or whatever) to build up the single music track. You would therefore never be able to buy the individual streaming files; you buy the much bigger, longer track files.

 

This explains why you can still listen to a FLAC stream, that is interrupted mid song…. since the remaining small segment files will not yet have been sent to & buffered by the endpoint. 

And FLAC is a wrapper/ protocol too, at the next level. Once the endpoint unwraps each FLAC segment, joins together with the previous one, then I suppose it could theoretically be identical musical bit content as the entire song file. But I doubt that at any point the same files exist at the level of digital files being transferred over TCP/ RTSP/RTP or whatever….

 

So long as the reconstructed music data is sufficiently buffered and reclocked to the same highest level, then I see no reason why a music stream should sound any better or worse than the corresponding song file stored locally. After all, when you play a local file you’re just “streaming” it from your SSD or whatever using a computer disk/ bus protocol, with buffers etc… 

 

As I say, I’m no expert but this is my base understanding……

 

*) There are different streaming protocols, all with different performance/ cost/ complexity/ benefit / compatibility

 

 

 

[R1200CL]

On 11/2/2022 at 11:45 PM, georgios said:

You guys don’t happen to know which card sounds the best, do you?

 

The absolutely best “card” is the Uptone Audio EtherRegen, if you can wait until it’s available. 
 

What’s your signal path after the server ?

 

[Cebolla]

8 hours ago, krass said:

I’m no expert but AFAIK Qobuz streaming (& any streaming service) does NOT stream a SINGLE FLAC (or other) type file, so is not an identical file to a FLAC (or other) track that is downloaded.

 

Streaming will use a streaming protocol* that allows the endpoint to communicate with the streaming server. The streaming server will deliver short segments of music, typically 2-10 seconds, where each segment is a complete file for the purposes of the streaming protocol. The endpoint performs some buffering, and the task of unwrapping the segment files and joining them together. Streaming therefore delivers MANY complete files (FLAC or whatever) to build up the single music track. You would therefore never be able to buy the individual streaming files; you buy the much bigger, longer track files.

 

It's odd how you don't see that you are contradicting yourself - "streaming doesn't stream a single file", but instead streaming "delivers many complete (segment) files to build up the (that exact same!) single music (file) track"😀.

 

My statement was not about how the individual file tracks get delivered by streaming (so as segments of the individual files, etc), but simply that streaming delivers the exact same files (as local files, as far as the network file player is concerned).

 

 

 

8 hours ago, krass said:

This explains why you can still listen to a FLAC stream, that is interrupted mid song…. since the remaining small segment files will not yet have been sent to & buffered by the endpoint. 

And FLAC is a wrapper/ protocol too, at the next level. Once the endpoint unwraps each FLAC segment, joins together with the previous one, then I suppose it could theoretically be identical musical bit content as the entire song file.

 

Agreed, except why suppose it to be theoretically identical - it is identical (in practice, not in theory).

 

 

 

8 hours ago, krass said:

So long as the reconstructed music data is sufficiently buffered and reclocked to the same highest level, then I see no reason why a music stream should sound any better or worse than the corresponding song file stored locally.

 

Quite, otherwise I'd suggest you have a faulty network audio file player/streamer (assuming the network is ok & you have a decent internet connection).

 

 

 

8 hours ago, krass said:

After all, when you play a local file you’re just “streaming” it from your SSD or whatever using a computer disk/ bus protocol, with buffers etc…

 

I see that you're not "supposing" the protocols involved in playing a local file to be "theoretically" bit perfect 😀.