A few years ago Stevesky posted that the way data is presented to the streamer can affect sound quality. Maybe Melco supplies the data in a different manner to Qobuz. I know Tidal supplies data to the streamer in a different manner to Spotify.
SteveskyNaim Staff
HI @LJS,
When using Chromecast the stream is bit perfect and native upto 192kHz/24bit. The downside of Chromecast + Qobuz is that it’s not really designed to run at such high sample rates. The buffer sizes are far too small (hence prone to drop outs) and the Chromecast stack is very inefficient so uses nearly all the CPU time in the streamer. Not only is this bad for unit response times, but not also great for sound quality as the electric noise floor of the product increases as everything works harder.