Digital optical connection + sound quality

[Vagabond225]

Hi

I am looking at setting up a system to stream from locally stored music on a NAS, as well as from internet based services.

I see the setup as being Source >> Streamer >> DAC >> AMP.

My question is -

Is the final sound quality dependent on the kind of streaming device (ie the digital signal going into the DAC?)

My thinking is that data from a digital source (a .flac file for example) would be identical regardless of the device that is reading & outputting it as digital (to a TOSLINK). It sould be the same signal whether from a cheap USB converter on a PC, or a £3,000 Linn device.

I undersatnd a Linn would provide other benefits, and not suggesting they are like for like, but my question is regarding whether just the optical digital streams are the same.

Any advice would be appreciated

Cheers

 

[MajorFubar]

The short answer is 'yes'. The more complex answer is 'they should be'. Before now (actually several years ago initially), I offered to settle this debate once and for all by recording the optical output from my £50 BluRay player when playing any random CD and comparing it to a recording of the digital output from any kindly-loaned multi thousand pound transport of the challenger's choice playing the exact same CD. The two recordings should be absolutely identical. To prove (or even disprove) this, once the two recordings have been aligned sample-perfect in a DAW, they should mathematically null each other to complete silence when you invert the phase of one file. I wait to be taken up on this offer, though someone has recently said he would lend me a player for such a test if he's ever in financial position to buy one, just to see what the results are.

 

[abacus]

Assuming lossless files on the NAS, then the quality will be determined by the DAC and its associated components. (Digital either works or it doesn’t, it cannot alter the sound in any way, and if anyone says it does, ask them to provide independent verifiable evidence that it does, and when they can’t, then it proves their claims are nonsense)

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[Vagabond225]

Thanks for your response, you have confirmed what I thought (guessed).

If this this the case, what is the point in buying a £3,000 CD Transport ??? Features can't stretch to much more that a few program and display options - can they?

It seems odd that reviews of high-end transports talk of 'Fantastic Sound'

Or is it all about showing off?

 

[MajorFubar]

Thanks for your response, you have confirmed what I thought (guessed).

If this this the case, what is the point in buying a £3,000 CD Transport ??? Features can't stretch to much more that a few program and display options - can they?

It seems odd that reviews of high-end transports talk of 'Fantastic Sound'

You are correct, and you are wise to be wary of any reviews which claim there are massive differences in sound between transports. Either a transport can read the data from the disk and send it to the DAC without error, or it can't. The last bastion of hope for all those people who claim transports sound different is jitter: timing misalignments between the transport and the DAC which flat earthers pin their hopes on explaining why the digital output from their multi-thousand-pound transport sounds different to that from a £50 BD player from Argos when plugged into the same DAC.

When reviewers talk about transport X (or dare I say it, digital cable X) giving better bass, crisper highs, deeper soundstage and all that rubbish which were once valid ways of describing differences between analogue sources, you eventually realise when the penny drops that they're talking through their arses, because no such differences can ever occur in the digital domain without the data being passed through some kind of digital signal processor, such an EQ or stereo widener.

Of course, my words are just that: words. In the great world of online forums, other people are entitled to come along and post contradictory words to mine, leaving you as the asker wondering who to believe. But by the looks of it you've already sussed out the truth.