Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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Why so verbose?

Posted by E-Stat (A) on December 13, 2017 at 06:30:51

In Reply to: RE: Still missing the point posted by RGA on December 13, 2017 at 05:25:53:

But it is an extra piece of hardware on top of a computer/laptop which most people already own.

It depends upon whether or not you seek better sound quality - or just want to continue bitching about how your laptop sounds.

I fire up the old Foobar2000 because I never get any hiccups or dropouts and it always works perfectly and I like the old school list (I view audioasylyum in classic mode too).

For the office, I use the main computer's sound card and like you, prefer responding to AA posts using my desktop with 32" monitor. Just want neither in my listening room.

this stuff moves fast and I am a stereo reviewer not a computer gadget reviewer

Who said anything about "computer gadgets"? I've always talked about music players.

but Network Audio Players / streamers sounded bad to me regardless of price as I suspect due to their DA conversion and lousy analog output stages.

Yes, integrated mid-fi appliances are not to what I refer either. Neither are simply transports feeding your choice of DAC.

It seems like I'd still have to connect a PC/laptop to see it on the big screen when playing music from hard drive.

No. You use a smartphone or tablet to control the headless devices. I use the iPeng app which can serve as either remote and player. I use my ipPad with Shure IEMs in the bedroom. Once again, I don't want high noise generation devices in my listening room!

Thus if the computer has to be set up anyway then adding any sort of streamer is a waste of time and money.

Only to those who lack understanding as to how they are set up.

Just to pay for a service that has music which I already own or plays music that if I thought was any good I would have already purchased?

What does that have to do with playback of your own digital content? Yes, I am a Tidal HIFI subscriber, but that extends my library, not replace it. I enjoy an increasingly larger collection of 24 bit recordings.

Why isn't anyone building a high end audio PC with all copper parts high end analog outputs - quiet drives, copper shielding, Nordost internal wiring, WBT connectors, heat sinks over fans, and actually build the thing.

Because that is not the optimal approach for the best audio playback. I greatly prefer using the computer you already have for file serving only and isolated from the listening areas. Use small footprint streamers using battery supplies that are optimized for music playback.

but if I were to buy say an affordable Pioneer Elite N50A streamer what do I actually gain?...it seems this would be vastly better and while costly...

The Cambridge player is another mid-fi appliance using noisy switching power supply with op amp analog output. Just look at its construction. The same can be said for the Pioneer.

Use your laptop for file storage (somewhere other than the listening room) connected via ethernet to a high quality streamer as opposed to the two mid-fi examples you've mentioned.

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