This may seem a silly question but..

[admin_exported]

Hi guys glad to be making my first post!

I am currently streaming Apple lossless from an Airport Express through the optical toslink into a Cyrus DAC XP +.

I am getting conflicting information / views as to whether or not a Cyrus Stream X would actually sound any better?

Thanks for any views, Ade

 

[Overdose]

My viewpoint is this....

You have a multi thousand pound system that should sound superb, or you wouldn't have bought it in the first place?

Get off of the caroussel of upgrade pain and angst, sit back and enjoy your music.

Oh, and change the '7' in your sig to '&'. 😉

 

[Anonymous]

Haha! Don't get me wrong, it does sound great, however surely a streamer worth £1400 "should" have better sound than an Airport Express however if they are both digital (optical) out into the DAC XP then surely the sources should be identical?

 

[professorhat]

I did a blind test on two different streaming solutions + a CD player as part of WHF's Big Question article. It wasn't scientific as such (as people will no doubt be at pains to explain later in this thread), but all I'll say is, on WHF's reference system, it was very easy to tell the difference between the three systems being played to us (even though we didn't know what the difference was at that stage). So this tells me something must be having an effect on the music in between it leaving the streamer / CD player and getting to the amp. Now, WHF's reference kit is extremely expensive - as a result, I'm not too worried about it on my home system (which uses an AV receiver for the love of god!). But it does let me know something is at play here.

Sure, could just be there was a different DAC built into each unit, but I personally have my doubts that everything is down to the DAC.

 

[AnotherJoe]

If you are that concerned about the quality of your music - you certainly should not be using Airport Express.

A StreamX connecting to a NAS/computer via network, or the digital out of your current source connecting to your DAC XP+ spdif input would be best.

 

[professorhat]

If you are that concerned about the quality of your music - you certainly should not be using Airport Express.

A StreamX connecting to a NAS/computer via network, or the digital out of your current source connecting to your DAC XP+ spdif input would be best.

What makes you say this AnotherJoe? I've not tried it personally, but from what I've heard, the Airport Express sounds the same across a wired network as it does across a wireless network. I put this down to the fact it uses standard TCP/IP protocol to transport music across both, thus ensuring there can be no errors in the transmission, but then at risk of dropouts as a result of this.

 

[AnotherJoe]

What makes you say this AnotherJoe? I've not tried it personally, but from what I've heard, the Airport Express sounds the same across a wired network as it does across a wireless network. I put this down to the fact it uses standard TCP/IP protocol to transport music across both, thus ensuring there can be no errors in the transmission, but then at risk of dropouts as a result of this.

Airport Express uses RTSP to stream audio so is susceptible to packet loss. Apple use a push technology which whilst being convenient - is not the best in terms of quality. Over wired this is not a problem.

Also I would note that AE does not support hi-res files - it downsamples, which makes using it with high end kit seem a bit pointless.

 

[professorhat]

What makes you say this AnotherJoe? I've not tried it personally, but from what I've heard, the Airport Express sounds the same across a wired network as it does across a wireless network. I put this down to the fact it uses standard TCP/IP protocol to transport music across both, thus ensuring there can be no errors in the transmission, but then at risk of dropouts as a result of this.

Airport Express uses RTSP to stream audio so is susceptible to packet loss. Apple use a push technology which whilst being convenient - is not the best in terms of quality. Over wired this is not a problem.

So no packet loss over a wired connection?

Also I would note that AE does not support hi-res files - it downsamples, which makes using it with high end kit seem a bit pointless.

So in saying that, you suggest that any "high end" system involving a CD player is also pointless? (quotes are merely there because the term "high end" is very subjective!)