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Naim NDX

Sorry flutteringwow you cannot get me on this one. I even had the pleasure of a Klimax for a few weeks, ohherr. At least they keep the software up to date. Nice machine. Eye watering price. Sounds good, like my PC* or Pi. I have no skin in this game so I guess I don't hear the 'night and day massive differences' between streamers, anymore than I hear differences with ethernet cables.

Optimise your network, make sure it works. Pick software that works for you and is flexible, get a decent dac.

*PC:
Low wattage cpu
PLEX Audio power supply
X audio USB with external linear power supply
Running roon rock but only as a streamer not server

That must be the crux of it, hearing ability..
 
Being a studio musician, I am quite aware how music is produced...on equipment that often costs more than many peoples houses. Not their Dell PC.

Oh come on, that's just not true.

Firstly, the most popular machines for audio production are apple macbooks - that's the go-to machine for the working music producer. For the PC crowd, what does Avid recommend? Well, if you go at look at the list of Avid Qualified systems you'll find Dell and HP off the shelf systems as being recommended:

https://resources.avid.com/supportfiles/attach/Windows_Current_CPU_Specifications.pdf

That list is a little old (not sure why) but basically HP Z workstations are again the standard, and have been for years. These aren't boutique machines, they are bog standard but well built machines. I use HP Z640s for ProTools, for example. These sorts of machines are like the macbooks in the £2k and up range.

Yes, the studio has expensive gear in it, but we were talking about playback, and whether a typical machine is good enough. The answer from the pros is yes, and actually, the machines in studios tend to be older as from experience they avoid upgrading mid project, so machines can easily be 5 - 10 years old.

Other DAWs, more specialist ones like Sadie (used by the BBC for radio productions) runs on even older Windows versions, so you're typically looking at Windows XP era computers, and those also work just fine. They are ancient in computing terms, but are really really useful tools, so just keep going on and on...

I have no interest though how or why a good quality dedicated streamer is far superior to a PC or Pi, they just are. I don't need to justify anything I say on an internet forum. Those that know, know, those that don't use similar rhetoric to you (generally older folk that have little experience of making music). Just how it is.

Wow, just wow. I don't think you have any idea who you are talking to.
 
Oh come on, that's just not true.

Firstly, the most popular machines for audio production are apple macbooks - that's the go-to machine for the working music producer. For the PC crowd, what does Avid recommend? Well, if you go at look at the list of Avid Qualified systems you'll find Dell and HP off the shelf systems as being recommended:

https://resources.avid.com/supportfiles/attach/Windows_Current_CPU_Specifications.pdf

That list is a little old (not sure why) but basically HP Z workstations are again the standard, and have been for years. These aren't boutique machines, they are bog standard but well built machines. I use HP Z640s for ProTools, for example. These sorts of machines are like the macbooks in the £2k and up range.

Yes, the studio has expensive gear in it, but we were talking about playback, and whether a typical machine is good enough. The answer from the pros is yes, and actually, the machines in studios tend to be older as from experience they avoid upgrading mid project, so machines can easily be 5 - 10 years old.

Other DAWs, more specialist ones like Sadie (used by the BBC for radio productions) runs on even older Windows versions, so you're typically looking at Windows XP era computers, and those also work just fine. They are ancient in computing terms, but are really really useful tools, so just keep going on and on...



Wow, just wow. I don't think you have any idea who you are talking to.

Lol, this really bores the life out of me, but my typical recording studio dosen't just use a Macbook Pro, the mixing desk they use costs £250k...and the amount of linear power supplies they use to remove noise is unreal. You'll find good power supplies in good streamers, which does contribute to their performance increase over Dell DIYers.

However, as I said, it bores me entirely, the proof is in the proverbial listening pudding, and good streamers far surpass good computers for Hifi purposes, imo. I was a believer they made no difference once upon a time...I was so very wrong and now I am in audio heaven. Thats a win for me.
 
Lol, this really bores the life out of me, but my typical recording studio dosen't just use a Macbook Pro, the mixing desk they use costs £250k...and the amount of linear power supplies they use to remove noise is unreal. You'll find good power supplies in good streamers, which does contribute to their performance increase over Dell DIYers.

However, as I said, it bores me entirely, the proof is in the proverbial listening pudding, and good streamers far surpass good computers for Hifi purposes, imo. I was a believer they made no difference once upon a time...I was so very wrong and now I am in audio heaven. Thats a win for me.

From your description it sounds like you are referring to an analog desk being used during mixdown. If this is the case, the audio quality is almost entirely down to the mixer since it will introduce distortion, crosstalk, noise etc, as well as the required EQ and compression and bus based effects, and all of these factors will swamp the audio quality coming from the converters, and hence from the upstream PC/Mac. As you say, if you spend the money and get your power supply right, those desks add less problems and more of the qualities that you are looking for, so that is a sensible investment point for a commercial studio.

This is however not relevant to a discussion about the audio quality that comes out of a bog standard PC/Mac through an audio interface, which is the configuration that replicates what happens in streaming. And in fact, the source of the audio data being fed to the nice SSL desk in your fancy mixdown setup will be from a bog standard off the shelf computer with off the shelf switched mode power supplies. Usually it's Avid/ProTools/HDX cards with their 16 channel converters, so it'll be balanced over D25 connectors, the sort of thing that wouldn't be touched in a fancy home setup as it's obviously crap :)

Anyhow, i'll let you get back to your superior non-switched mode audio playback system which is obviously better than whatever Dell/HP/Apple crap they run at Abbey Road and all the other top studios in the world.
 
Anyhow, i'll let you get back to your superior non-switched mode audio playback system which is obviously better than whatever Dell/HP/Apple crap they run at Abbey Road and all the other top studios in the world.

Lol, the Abbey Road argument, it's a wonder you havent mentioned Van Damme cables yet!
 
Lol, the Abbey Road argument, it's a wonder you havent mentioned Van Damme cables yet!

To recap. You said PCs are no good for streaming. I said that studios use normal regular PCs/Macs for DAW work so it can be good enough for streaming. You said, ah, but they have lots of expensive gear and use linear power supplies. I said, no, the PCs they use are standard off the shelf ones, switched power supplies etc, the linear supplies are for their analog gear and desks, not related.

So at this point, you believe that the PCs they use in studios can work (I don't believe you have a problem with that?) but that they have some magic sauce that means this is the case, but that for people at home, they can't get decent audio quality from a PC and need a dedicated steamer. You also say Dell are crap, with no justification. I pointed out that Avid recommend Dell machines on their website for pro audio use. Care to comment on this?
 
My experience so far has been that there is less difference among streaming transports than between DACs. So, yes, an NDX is better as a streaming transport than a Chromecast Audio, and a NDS is slightly better than a NDX. But those differences are, to me, nowhere near as significant as the differences from DAC to DAC. So I'd suggest getting a less expensive streamer transport with a better DAC.
 
My experience so far has been that there is less difference among streaming transports than between DACs. So, yes, an NDX is better as a streaming transport than a Chromecast Audio, and a NDS is slightly better than a NDX. But those differences are, to me, nowhere near as significant as the differences from DAC to DAC. So I'd suggest getting a less expensive streamer transport with a better DAC.

What higher end streamers have you used Bob? You'll be surprised, as I was. I agree, the DAC is probably the more important component, but they definitely arent far away from each other in terms of what they bring to the mix.
 
My experience too, a good DAC makes a massive difference, the above NDX gets a big leap when used together with the external unit.
But you do also need a good transport to make it happen and Chromecast , Node ,Rapsberry and the likes would spoil everything.
So ,yep, the streaming side is quite decisive and some, pretty sure the Auralic proved it to be even truer but the analog conversion has the biggest impact once everything is sorted out, the other way round, a good transport into an average DAC would be like putting the icing on a 99p cake.
 
If you ever get the chance, try something like an Auralic G2, you'll be astonished the performance increase over the Node.

With what DAC? I had an asynchronous Firewire connection from my Mac Mino running Pure Music into my Weiss DAC202. In theory hugely better than what I have currently but my ears tell me Node2i into my DAC is better!
 
With what DAC? I had an asynchronous Firewire connection from my Mac Mino running Pure Music into my Weiss DAC202. In theory hugely better than what I have currently but my ears tell me Node2i into my DAC is better!

Dedicated streamers are always better :)

My DAC is an Aqua La Voce S3. The G2 into the S3 is just simply excellent.
 


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