I was sloppy. What I meant was that if @Jubal thought the only sonic improvement related to playback of local files (I interpreted his post this way, as he seemed to imply without local files a switch was irrelevant) then he was misunderstnaidng something. Re your last point, I have not forgotten it, it just didn't seem relevant to the post I was replying to.
We can do a call if you like. I may have misunderstood your post, apologies if so, but I thought you wre implying that a switch might make a difference only if you had locally stored files to play. A correctly installed switch will improve the sound quality of anything reaching the streamer, whether locally stored or internet streamed.
I share your frustration but feel compelled to disagree with your last sentence - sorry!
The WiiM mini doesn’t have an Ethernet port to facilitate that so I was envisioning my yet to be ripped collection on a new NAS/Streamer/DAC combo. Was it worth the cabling hassle in my case alongside the cost. I can stream wirelessly from the NAS now. Guilty of looking at this solely from my perspective. Also why any switch to test is futile right now.
Ah sorry, I thought you had the Wiim amp with built in streamer and an Ethernet port.
Around a thousand £ I’m guessing?
Just to be clear, the noise that is being discussed is out of audioband noise in the digital cable going to the DAC, whether this noise originates in the network, or streamer or elsewhere. And yes this can be measured with the right instruments. The spectrum analyser I have is at the low end of the sort of kit required and to get more meaningful measurements the cost of the kit unfortunately quickly escalates.
Whilst that is interesting and valuable in its own right for the work you do, as far as I can see none of that has any relevance to the issues being discussed in this thread in that it does not appear to measure the modulation distortion being discussed arising from out of audioband noise. So as an answer to @Woodface question I am not sure it is relevant.Yes and it has been done.
One of the test methods we use is called POLQA and measure/test up to Super Wideband (14 Khz) so is comparable to the frequency range most of us can hear for music.
The sample file is a PCM 16/28 looping frequency sweep but I also created my own in audacity using Blondie's "hanging on the telephone"
The tests include taking the sample file converting it from analogue to digital sending it over a WAN and converting it back to analogue at the far end and then capturing that as a file. The software then compares the source file to the captured file and determines how much the original has been degraded.
That again is a similar method to how music is streamed over the internet to your home and converted to analogue via your DAC.
For sure! But if that means that he and other designers are omitted from the list of people who know what they are talking about one is reduced to relying on internet forums and look where that gets us!
www.whathifi.com
You answered my question in the subsequent post. FMCs appear to be the new Dogs Bollox, but as someone who has dickered, over the years, with various obsessions like linear power suppliers, and hifi stands, and who know what, is an ethernet connection, via fibre optics, going to be better than wifi ?
I've tried a couple of the cheaper Topping and SMSL offerings, and I'd say the biggest differences to the way that dacs are going to sound like are the quality of the mastering of the source material, and the sound of your speakers. As @Alex S mentions earlier in this thread, dacs sound more alike than different.Ah, for sure. It’s impossible not to hear a difference that a well organised power supply brings (with exception of the deaf ASR guys who think that several quid chinese dacs sound good enough but that is a usual thing
Ah see you've gone into full patronising mode.
What a nasty, if not libellous post!
I was talking about the ability to hear a difference, if these differences are tiny we probably just don’t hear them, perhaps we kid ourselves we do.
As with everything it is different things to different people. For me and in my system the cost of the PhoenixNET switch improved the sound by an amount in proportion to its cost. I fully appreciate that to others that may well not be the case but for me I would not describe the differences as tiny. That’s all I can say really. One needs to try for oneself and make a decision / judgement.
Actually that’s a bit complicated. I’m looking forward to the measurements to show that a random switch is a better RF filter than any RF filter. I mean no one could possibly say anything that surprising without evidence, because otherwise they would look silly.
