Please help. What is the best sound quality? Direct through cables or through the air? more......

[admin_exported]

Hello,

I have just entered the world of HI FI 1 year ago. I have a pair of monitor audio BR5's, an Onkyo TX-SR605, a Philips 1080 37" tv, a 5 star sub woofer, 5 star QED hdmi leads, QED silver Anniversary XT speaker cable, and top class banana plugs. My surround speakers are Wharfdale Diamonds 9.1. Attached to my system is an apple tv, and 5 star Cord Company optical fibre connection to my amp. I also have a new ipod classic 120GB with Klipsch headphones and a pair of grado SR60's.

On my PC via itunes I have coverted all my music files to AIFF uncompressed music and the difference is amazing, especially on my headphones.

My questions are these:-

At present I play my uncompressed AIFF music files from my computers hard drive through my apple tv via Wi Fi.

1) Are musical sound waves better through wires or through the air via Wi Fi for example?

2) Would the sound quality be better if directly channeled from the computer via wires to my Onkyo amp?

3) Would the music sound better from a computer to a dedicated stereo amp?

4) Can you connect a hard drive or computer to an amp? Does the ethernet cable compromise sound quality?

 

[The_Lhc]

The sewage man: My questions are these:-

At present I play my uncompressed AIFF music files from my computers hard drive through my apple tv via Wi Fi.

1) Are musical sound waves better through wires or through the air via Wi Fi for example?

4) Can you connect a hard drive or computer to an amp? Does the ethernet cable compromise sound quality?

The answer to both of these is that wi-fi or ethernet cable makes no difference, because you are not sending "sound waves" you're sending a digital signal, which is then decoded at the other end (ie after the wired/wireless connection), so how the "music" gets from the PC to the Apple TV is irrelevant really, provided the wi-fi has sufficient bandwidth.

2) Would the sound quality be better if directly channeled from the computer via wires to my Onkyo amp?

Nope. Somewhere along the line you need a DAC to convert from Digital to Analogue, this is what makes the difference in sound quality, currently you're relying on the Onkyo's DAC to do this conversion.

3) Would the music sound better from a computer to a dedicated stereo amp?

Possibly yes, few, if any home cinema amps can compete with a dedicated stereo amp with music, you might need to get a seperate DAC though in this case.

 

[Anonymous]

One thing is for sure, you cannot beat the quality of cables over wifi. With cables you are getting a pure direct signal, with little loss or interfierence. If you transmit through the air with no wires, that signal can be distorted, all your other electrical devices will interfere one way or another, reducing the quality of the original signal, thus making the results less enjoyable.

A dedicated stereo amp will always trump an av amp on music, less so on movies. Buy a cable such as Chord ichord or a less expensive cable QED J2P, and run it from your pc soundcard (if you have one, or line out) to the av amp, and you will notice an improvement.

 

[The_Lhc]

ScottH:
One thing is for sure, you cannot beat the quality of cables over wifi. With cables you are getting a pure direct signal, with little loss or interfierence. If you transmit through the air with no wires, that signal can be distorted, all your other electrical devices will interfere one way or another, reducing the quality of the original signal, thus making the results less enjoyable.

If you're talking about ethernet cables over wi-fi then there will be no difference, you're sending ethernet packets, if they become corrupted or missing in transit they'll simply be resent. If you copy a wav file from a PC to an Apple TV (for example) by wi-fi and then copy the same file by ethernet cable the two files will be identical. When the Apple TV decodes them they will sound exactly the same.

 

[Anonymous]

ScottH:
One thing is for sure, you cannot beat the quality of cables over wifi.

If this is correct is the picture quality through Virgin (cable) better than Sky (from a satelite. ie wifi ish)? Sorry for the slightly off topic question.

 

[jaxwired]

heystak:ScottH:

One thing is for sure, you cannot beat the quality of cables over wifi.

If this is correct is the picture quality through Virgin (cable) better than Sky (from a satelite. ie wifi ish)? Sorry for the slightly off topic question.

It's not true. However, while cable and satellite both use a digital signal quality differences can occur do to compression. Sometimes a digital signal is compressed for faster transfer. The compressed digital signal can impact picture or sound quality. It all depends on your service.

But the digital signal itself is not compromised one way or the other by the transfer method (wire or antenna). What is sent is what you get.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all your replies.

I have a couple of more questions then based on your answers that signals sent through cables are better than through the air, i.e Wi Fi.

1) If I buy a dedicated stereo amp and a pair of B&W 685's, and connect to my computers hard drive to the dedicated amp, would I need to upgrade my sound card, and if so what would be a suitable sound card for this set up?

How would I connect the computer to a dedicated stereo amp?

2) And will a computer connected to an amp playing uncompressed AIFF files, sound better than a seperate cd player connected to dedicated stereo amp?

 

[Anonymous]

You connect the computer from the audio out in the back to the stereo amp my a 3.5mm jack to rca cable. Generally a seperate cd player will sound better unless you have a good DAC or perhaps a very good soundcard.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all your reply. Any idea on the other questions?

I have a couple of more questions then based on your answers that signals sent through cables are better than through the air, i.e Wi Fi.

1) If I buy a dedicated stereo amp and a pair of B&W 685's, and connect to my computers hard drive to the dedicated amp, would I need to upgrade my sound card, and if so what would be a suitable sound card for this set up?

2) And will a computer connected to an amp playing uncompressed AIFF files, sound better than a seperate cd player connected to dedicated stereo amp?

 

[Anonymous]

It seems like you would be better advised to buy an external dac with a usb connection, then connect rca cables from the dac to the amp.

 

[Anonymous]