SPDIF vs DLNA

[Artoo]

Hi,

what are your experience in sound quality when comparing sending music over SPDIF (optical or coax) vs over DLNA (wired or wireless)? Is DLNA for example free from jitter, providing a more accurate signal at the receiver? And are differences in sound quality between the two options also dependent of the specific receiver perhaps? I'm considering the Hegel H160 amp, with DAC and DLNA btw.

Edit: please consider this in a high res context also, up to 24/192.

 

[abacus]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[Andrewjvt]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

As i was wonderi g the same on the tidal v spotify thread thanks.

Possibly a silly question though. Could i simply plug in the modem to amp and still use tidal? Or would i still need a laptop to run software? Its seems obivous as no screen to select songs etc but then is it mostly for airplay? As i could just use the usb input to laptop and not worry about dlna

 

[Artoo]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

Ok, thanks for clarifying this! I was thinking the actual transmission of the audio signal was transferred also over ethernet when using DLNA (possibly not making it have any jitter issus due to some error handling 'computer based' transmission protocol such as TCP/IP). But the audio signal is transferred over SPDIF when using DLNA 'streaming' then?

 

[lukam30]

Yes you can.Just plug in your router to your Hegel and enjoy tidal. I am using laptop conected to my Marantz NA7004 usb input but sometimes I play tidal via airplay and sounds great too.

 

[abacus]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

As i was wonderi g the same on the tidal v spotify thread thanks.

Possibly a silly question though. Could i simply plug in the modem to amp and still use tidal? Or would i still need a laptop to run software? Its seems obivous as no screen to select songs etc but then is it mostly for airplay? As i could just use the usb input to laptop and not worry about dlna

No, you cannot connect direct to the modem as software is required to connect to your ISP and supply the appropriate information. (Username, password etc.)

If you have a laptop that is connected to the internet, then providing you DAC (Either internal or external) can accept USB input then you can use this method.

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[abacus]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

Ok, thanks for clarifying this! I was thinking the actual transmission of the audio signal was transferred also over ethernet when using DLNA (possibly not making it have any jitter issus due to some error handling 'computer based' transmission protocol such as TCP/IP). But the audio signal is transferred over SPDIF when using DLNA 'streaming' then?

A network just transfers data from one place to another and allows various equipment to be connected to it, so as to share the data, it has no effect on sound whatsoever.

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[lukam30]

When using AirPlay on the Hegel H160, you can send the music stream from your AirPlay certified device, to the amplifier. Start with connecting your Hegel H160 to your local network using Ethernet cable from network connection (LAN - RJ45) on the back of the amplifier, to your router.

Make sure the Hegel H160 is connected to your network. When connected, the unit will set up to DHCP, and will automatically receive an IP-address and then integrate in your home network. All AirPlay compatible devices will now detect the Hegel H160 in their list of AirPlay speakers, it will be displayed as “H160”, followed by a unique number. To activate the AirPlay function on your AirPlay compatible device, you must first make sure the device is connected to the same network as the Hegel H160. For details on this please check the device manual. Then the AirPlay icon is displayed and you can select the H160. You are now ready to send the music stream to your amplifier

 

[Artoo]

When using AirPlay on the Hegel H160, you can send the music stream from your AirPlay certified device, to the amplifier. Start with connecting your Hegel H160 to your local network using Ethernet cable from network connection (LAN - RJ45) on the back of the amplifier, to your router.

Make sure the Hegel H160 is connected to your network. When connected, the unit will set up to DHCP, and will automatically receive an IP-address and then integrate in your home network. All AirPlay compatible devices will now detect the Hegel H160 in their list of AirPlay speakers, it will be displayed as “H160”, followed by a unique number. To activate the AirPlay function on your AirPlay compatible device, you must first make sure the device is connected to the same network as the Hegel H160. For details on this please check the device manual. Then the AirPlay icon is displayed and you can select the H160. You are now ready to send the music stream to your amplifier

Great explanation! Thus streaming via AirPlay sends the audio data over ethernet. Does this mean this audio data does not suffer from jitter issues (as in SPDIF)? Does AirPlay support 24/192? And, does this also apply to DLNA, or is DLNA just a device discovery service, while SPDIF and AirPlay implements audio signal transmission (obviously not clear to me yet how this really works I guess.

 

[lukam30]

AirPlay streams at 16-bit, 44,100 in Apple Lossless format. CD quality streaming, which is as good as it gets.

 

[Andrewjvt]

All comments have been appreciated

 

[andyjm]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

Ok, thanks for clarifying this! I was thinking the actual transmission of the audio signal was transferred also over ethernet when using DLNA (possibly not making it have any jitter issus due to some error handling 'computer based' transmission protocol such as TCP/IP). But the audio signal is transferred over SPDIF when using DLNA 'streaming' then?

S/PDIF is a point to point, synchronous, unidirectional, hardware and data format standard as old as the hills. Developed by Sony and Philips in the days when processing power was expensive. It has no flow control or error correction and relies on the data clock being extracted from the bitstream. If a downstream DAC relies on a sample clock recovered from the S/PDIF link, then the S/PDIF link will introduce additional jitter.

DLNA is a suite of standards to allow multimedia devices to connect to each other over a variety of mediums. When used over an ethernet connection using TCP/IP, it has flow control and error correction capability. It will not introduce additional jitter as the sample clock will be generated asynchronously by the DAC itself.

So, in answer to your question, all other things being equal (and they rarely are), a DLNA / ethernet driven DAC should have better performance than a S/PDIF DAC if the S/PDIF DAC simply slaves itself to the incomming S/PDIF clock. These days however, most S/PDIF DACs have some form of jitter mitigation circuitry, so there is unlikely to be any difference due to the link itself.

 

[Artoo]

SP-DIF is a standard for digital transmission over a cable, DLNA is a standard that allows diffrent items of equipment to comunicate with each other, (Assuming they comply with the DLNA standard) they do not have any bearing on sound quality as this is determind solely by the DAC and associated components in the equipment.

Hope this helps

Bill

Ok, thanks for clarifying this! I was thinking the actual transmission of the audio signal was transferred also over ethernet when using DLNA (possibly not making it have any jitter issus due to some error handling 'computer based' transmission protocol such as TCP/IP). But the audio signal is transferred over SPDIF when using DLNA 'streaming' then?

S/PDIF is a point to point, synchronous, unidirectional, hardware and data format standard as old as the hills. Developed by Sony and Philips in the days when processing power was expensive.  It has no flow control or error correction and relies on the data clock being extracted from the bitstream.  If a downstream DAC relies on a sample clock recovered from the S/PDIF link, then the S/PDIF link will introduce additional jitter.

DLNA is a suite of standards to allow multimedia devices to connect to each other over a variety of mediums. When used over an ethernet connection using TCP/IP, it has flow control and error correction capability. It will not introduce additional jitter as the sample clock will be generated asynchronously by the DAC itself.?

So, in answer to your question, all other things being equal (and they rarely are), a DLNA / ethernet driven DAC should have better performance than a S/PDIF DAC if the S/PDIF DAC simply slaves itself to the incomming S/PDIF clock.  These days however, most S/PDIF DACs have some form of jitter mitigation circuitry, so there is unlikely to be any difference due to the link itself.

 

Ok, thanks for the answer! This was about my understanding from the beginning of the thread. I guess then that, at least in theory, sending audio over a basic ethernet cable on a stable network using DLNA (and thus in an error correcting protocol) would perform at least as good as ANY optical or coax cable (regardless of price), assuming reconstruction of the audio stream at the receiving unit is made in a good way. I do not know, but maybe jitter and / or other problems can arise in that process of course. Seems to me error correcting (async) protocols are the future though.