Take 2 streamers on the same platform, there’re far less platforms than streamers
Well the internet does exist, and people do experience these effects, so that statement cannot be true.
Again obviously wrong since many here, including myself, have experienced such effects.
So presumably all CD transports sound the same then. They all just read a CD and produce a data stream to feed to a DAC. Since this data can’t possibly be affected in any way then they obviously must all sound identical right? Except that they don’t!
These are bold assertions that you have made in an authoritative manner, but which clearly do not align with the reality of what actually happens.
Remember when CD’s first came out and people claimed they were 'the perfect sound" because they were digital, and digital can of course only ever be perfect?
Back to the drawing board I’m afraid!!!
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Again, you’re confused about what digital is and the true cause and effect here.
If I put a 99.99999999% silver cored, exotic insulation SATA cable on my CD burner, it doesn’t in any way affect the data written to the CD.
When that CD gets played, some potential subjectivity comes into the equation pre-DAC: clocks. But it’s still possible to have a bit-perfect output from different transports, as in, if you recreated the wav file from the digital output it would be identical to what was written to the CD in the first place. All of this is relatively easily tested if you want to understand it better yourself.
Once we hit the DAC we enter a massive realm of subjective changes to the material.
I don’t think the data is affected, the noise, for sure, and something related to flow, or timing, because the best effective audiophile switches use high grade clocks, ocxo in general.
A lot of users have experienced a much better sound when connecting a high quality clock to their switch, like Mutec or Sotm.
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This is writing data to a disc. It is not producing a digital data stream to be replayed in real time. That is an entirely different situation.
You are confusing two different things and appear to have shot yourself in the foot!
As you correctly point out - ‘bit-perfect’ doesn’t equate to perfect sound.
Now extrapolate that thinking to network components like switches or routers and you can see that what you say about these not affecting the sound doesn’t hold up.
I’ll give you a brief example. My BT Smart Hub 2 sounds different - I mean noticeably different - according to the supporting surface it’s placed on. Now I’m not suggesting that the supporting surface affects the integrity of the digital data it’s handling, but something is clearly happening, and it’s happening in the digital domain, since my hub only handles and outputs digital data.
See things my way?
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Could we please not have another tedious “bits are bits”/“bit perfect is perfect” entrenched argument here, otherwise I’ll just have to close the thread as it’s really dull for the readership. Remember that it’s always good to keep an open mind, and there’s always more to learn and discover.
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Correct. A forum is a place to listen, not just talk
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In fact, you’re not wrong. But neither are you right.
You’re right in saying that its not the bit structure that’s changing, rather its the DAC that’s changing the sound.
You’re wrong in thinking that the network can’t change sound quality. It can and most certainly does. It does so by affecting the quality of the physical layer of the data stream arriving at the DAC and DACs (at those I’ve experienced) are super sensitive to the quality of the physical layer of the bit stream its processing.
Take 2 bit-perfect data streams…ie 2 streams with identical bit structures but vary the quality of the physical layer of each stream and the same DAC will produce 2 very different sounds.
Improvements such as those discussed here would be a total and complete waste of money in an IT-only environment. It’s only when the system includes a DAC and is used to create an analog music signal that the improvements have any effect.
Given that the effects on IT are zero, you may think that the effects on the analog signal would be marginal at best, but that would be erroneous, which is why these improvements to the network are gaining so much traction and are the basis for several high-end manufacturer’s product development strategies.
The improvements have 2 major benefits when it comes to streaming music. 1. The improvements are absolutely scalable and 2. The better the quality of the data stream’s physical layer becomes, the greater the impact of further enhancements….in other-words the inverse of the law of diminishing returns.
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Hope that’s Salty Popcorn.
DG…
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I wonder if the use of the word “digital” is perhaps being misunderstood here.
The transport of this “digital” information is actually being transported via analog waveform representations of the digital data.
During this analog transportation, many artifacts that are usual in power supplies, analog electronics and cables can be introduced and transferred between circuits.
So, although the “digital” data is faithfully reproduced at the recieving end, we now also have potentially introduced unwanted noise, distortion, whatever, into the recieving circuits.
Is this not the reason (or one reason, at least) that various equipment differs in audible output?
I think confusion arises when people consider “digital” data to actually be purely “digital” from beginning to end.
Digital data probably spends most of its time, in the chain, actually as an analog waveform representation.
As a simplistic example, in the IT data transfer arena, accompanying “noise” is completely irrelevant and disregarded.
The “0’s” and “1’s” are represented by voltages, i.e “0’s” = 0 volts and “1’s” = 5 volts, for example.
There is a predetermined margin of error, for example anything between 0 volts and 2 volts is low and equals a “0”. Anything between 3 volts and 5 volts is high and equals a “1”
In audio, the waveform requires an awful lot more precision to faithfuly reproduce a given sound wave.
Any other introduced artifacts suddenly do matter, as they change the resultant sound wave.
This is just my simplistic understanding and, as such, does not delve into the intricacies of the matter.
It is just a simple attempt at explaining why these issues have no relevance in the IT data world, but do have relevance in the world of music reproduction.
And also a rather basic attempt to explain why the integrity of the digital data reconstruction is not the “issue” when discussing musical reproduction. The “issue” is more to do with the introduction of noise, distortion, etc, being introduced into the circuitry.
I’m sure someone else could explain things in a more definitive manner, though!
Or, I could be just completely wrong!
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Oops! Sorry @Richard.Dane
I started composing my reply half an hour ago, before the discussion took off.
It will be a shame if it comes to this. This is a really fascinating thread and an excellent way of sharing information/experiences.
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Yes indeed. Propogated by the movement of electrons in a conductor or light in an optical cable. My physics knowledge is way out of date, but I believe that the physical world is still analogue!
Well said and absolutely true.
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A good post.
I would delete ‘probably’ and ‘most of’ from the quoted statement.
Digital audio files are encoded in Ethernet cables in analogue electromagnetic waveforms.
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Sir, they are still arguing about bits when you told them not to.
And I’ve thrown my popcorn away!
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I have some in the pantry… rummaging sounds…
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A touch of qualification here perhaps might be helpful so as not to confuse some. The audio data is represented as a time defined series of digitalised sample data. This sampled data is the payload of the digital systems used in the processing and transport chain. Within the chain there is much other ‘digital’ data used to control, define, store and orchestrate the digitised sample payload.
The analogue signal itself only exists when it is reconstructed or prior to encoding at key points such as ADC, DACs or Vinyl cutters.
I agree that sampled data transported and stored in network and computing systems is just a regular payload like most other payloads… nothing special.
The one area I can think of however which does require more IT specialism with audio is when low latency concurrent stream synchronisation is required such as connecting equipment together in recording studios, here specialist network service protocols are used such as AVB and Dante (there are others too)
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Just kick back and listen to your music everyone, it’s Sunday.