Difference in digital sources

[admin_exported]

Hello there,

Just a quick theoretical question for you all based on the following set ups:

• Music is ripped to a hard drive
• Music accessed through a music server
• Music server outputs to a DAC
• DAC outputs to an amplifier

Does it make any difference what music server is used in this example? To put it another way would a sonos / squeezebox / linn ds all sound the same?

For the purpose of control assume that the hard drive, dac and amplifier are held constant.

I'm interested only in sound quality, not the ease of use of each server.

My hypothesis is that there is no difference between any music server in this scenario.

Thank you.

 

[amcluesent]

>My hypothesis is that there is no difference between any music server in this scenario.<

There will be differences in the jitter on the S/PDIF even if you turn off any upsampling in the Linn.

 

[manicm]

By all accounts the Linn DS sounds best, and is also the most expensive.

 

[Anonymous]

Why would that be?

Don't they all just output the same digital signal to the DAC?

 

[manicm]

demartin_1:

Why would that be?

Don't they all just output the same digital signal to the DAC?

A large part of the DS's sound is its internal DAC, and interface which is designed for minimum jitter. Another reason perhaps is because it's a wired solution, unlike Sonos or Squeezebox.

 

[nads]

manicm:demartin_1:

Why would that be?

Don't they all just output the same digital signal to the DAC?

A large part of the DS's sound is its internal DAC, and interface which is designed for minimum jitter. Another reason perhaps is because it's a wired solution, unlike Sonos or Squeezebox.

Yes but that is not what is being asked.

I have never tried what the OP is sujesting but i can not see why it would sound any different.

 

[manicm]

nads:manicm:demartin_1:

Why would that be?

Don't they all just output the same digital signal to the DAC?

A large part of the DS's sound is its internal DAC, and interface which is designed for minimum jitter. Another reason perhaps is because it's a wired solution, unlike Sonos or Squeezebox.

Yes but that is not what is being asked.

I have never tried what the OP is sujesting but i can not see why it would sound any different.

Well actually I forgot one very, very important point - Linn DS is the only digital player that will natively play up to 24b/192k files, the Sonos and Squeezy simply don't handle this - even though their internal DACs might.

It's akin to DVD upsampling and full HD Blu-ray, or playing Blu-Ray on a 'HD Ready' TV instead of full HD.

That is a massive advantage of the Linn DS if one can afford it and willing to sit through the initial painful setup.

And a lot of tweaking is needed to get higher resolution files to play properly off a PC.

To answer your and the OP's question, I'll answer that with another question - why do some CD players sound better than others?

 

[Andrew Everard]

demartin_1:My hypothesis is that there is no difference between any music server in this scenario.

Well, given that music can sound different when exactly the same file is stored on, and streamed from, different brands/types of USB keys...

I think your hippopotamus may be somewhat wide of the mark.

 

[The_Lhc]

manicm:Another reason perhaps is because it's a wired solution, unlike Sonos or Squeezebox.

Sonos is part wired, the first zone must be cabled to the router, Sonos don't support any other configuration. All zones can be cabled if you want.

 

[Alec]

Andrew Everard:demartin_1:My hypothesis is that there is no difference between any music server in this scenario.

Well, given that music can sound different when exactly the same file is stored on, and streamed from, different brands/types of USB keys...

I think your hippopotamus may be somewhat wide of the mark.

Never heard that before. Interesting.

 

[Anonymous]

al7478:Andrew Everard:demartin_1:My hypothesis is that there is no difference between any music server in this scenario.

Well, given that music can sound different when exactly the same file is stored on, and streamed from, different brands/types of USB keys...

Never heard that before. Interesting.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense and just one step too far. Andrew, if you can demonstrate audible differences (by blind testing) on identical source material stored and sourced from different brands of USB sticks I swear I will eat not only my socks but also the USB sticks that you were comparing.

In the meanwhile I will consider upgrading my keyboard cable so that I can ensure there is enough headroom to deliver this post to your web site without any loss of clarity, sharpness or definition of the characters I'm entering.

 

[Anonymous]

well storvante no respond from Andrew, perhaps if you also offered to eat that new keyboard of yours he would take up your challange.

 

[Alec]

storsvante, you could always try it.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your contributions. Although I am none the wiser I am now going to pay a lot more attention to my hippopotamus.

If it is true that different hard drives / usb sticks etc really do sound different then I can see this hard drive based music business getting really expensive. I can also see my friends putting me in the nut house, they used to think I was crazy enough when I spent a weekend playing with a box of cables from my local hi fi shop.

 

[Anonymous]

dont worry they dont make a difference another myth

 

[Andrew Everard]

I was as surprised as some posters here seem to be, but it does make a difference. Best explanation seems to be that different sticks deliver data at different speeds.

 

[8009514]

So, does this mean we are likely to see a 'blind testing' article on memory sticks sometime in the near future? That could be interesting!

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, it could well be a relevant test to do. Lot of kit available now with a USB input source. All the other source kit seems to get well tested and compared, CDPs, record decks etc. But, to the best of my knowledge nothing ever done with memory sticks to plug into the USB input.

Pretty sure any differences would be very minor, but could be proved very wrong on that assumption.

 

[Andrew Everard]

In all probability, no.

 

[8009514]

Ha, you replied just as I was editing my previous post. The delay in editing was my 'thinking about it bit'.

 

[Anonymous]

I think people are getting confused over whats being said here.

Obviously the same MP3 file on two different USB sticks for example will be composed of exactly the same bits. No difference!

But... the speed and timing of the usb stick sending data to an amp for example will differ. This affects the sound. Whenever your dealing with digital data being "streamed" from one device to another, you are going to deal with 3 things.. speed, latency and jitter.

Speed will be the speed of transfer for the USB device, obviously not all devices with send at the same speed. Latency is the average delay between data segments. jitter on the other hand is the variation in the latency... so one segment may be sent at one speed and the next segment may be slightly slower or faster... so that variation would be the jitter.. all this affects sound, especially when its being streamed directly to a source rather than stored and played directly off the source.

This does not apply ofcourse when dealing with a high end dac for example, which would store and re-time all data segments to ensure that everything is hunkydory..

 

[Andrew Everard]

Interestingly, The Big Question in the December issue will ask whether the way you store your digital music makes a difference to the sound.

Readers will be blind-testing a computer hard drive against an iPod in a dock with a digital output against a CD player used as a transport.

 

[Anonymous]

Can I prod us back to the original post.

I am assuming that the system is all held constant other than the music server. This means that the nas / usb (or whatever the digital data is read from) is not really the issue.

The hypothesis was that under these test conditions there will be no difference between the sound of the server (sonos, squeezebox, linn ds, etc).

It has all been interesting though, thank you for your input.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Something that Big Question feature addresses, as already explained

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:Something that Big Question feature addresses, as already explained

Apologies, but no it does not.

'Readers will be blind-testing a computer hard drive against an iPod in a dock with a digital output against a CD player used as a transport'.

I am asking specifically about music servers in a controlled environment, you have just introduced numerous extra variables.

 

[Andrew Everard]

But they are all digital sources: everything else - the DAC, the amplification, the speakers and even the cabling will be the same...