MacBook used in a Digital system

[Gazjam]

And will sound the same as a Lindy one for £15. Same as a properly set up media server i.e. a fanless one, it will sound the same as any expensive ‘audiophile’ media server as long as both are outputting bit perfect files, with no resampling.

The issues with digital file transmission are associated with the clock, data is very very easy to get through perfectly, and RFI issues are associated with a lack of galvanic isolation on the input, or a USB input powered by the incoming power line rather than inside the unit itself. In the case of your Chord DAC, it is isolated, self powered and handles the clocking of your digital signals. I expect it to sound identical with any bit perfect input, and so would the designer.

What about the analogue domain?
Differences in impedance between inputs, cable topology effects between inputs?
More to Media servers than just outputting bit perfect, they CAN sound different. Always curious about why...

Never black and white (or even 1 and 0) in this game.
Just my humble experience of course.

[Macca]

What about the analogue domain?
Differences in impedance between inputs, cable topology effects between inputs?
More to Media servers than just outputting bit perfect, they CAN sound different. Always curious about why...

Never black and white (or even 1 and 0) in this game.
Just my humble experience of course.

It may be digital code being transmitted but it is still just electricity going down a wire the same as analogue is, so noise can travel along with that from transport to DAC to amp to speakers.. The better engineered the transport/server is, the less noise it will create and transmit.

The whole 'bit perfect' thing is a red herring, errors in the code will never be audible unless they are bad enough to leave gaps.

(I still think someone must have hacked James's log-in).

[Yomanze]

Bit perfect is not a red herring, as discussed some software resamples the audio, which is audible.

[Yomanze]

What about the analogue domain?
Differences in impedance between inputs, cable topology effects between inputs?
More to Media servers than just outputting bit perfect, they CAN sound different. Always curious about why...

Never black and white (or even 1 and 0) in this game.
Just my humble experience of course.

I think RFI is the culprit into why this stuff sounds different, or jitter, or clock drift. I use a self-powered USB to SPDIF converter into my DAC, which caters for all three.

USB inputs can be done badly, which can allow noise into the system, or can be well sorted, so the differences disappear.

I have an optical out on my motherboard, but it would be of higher jitter than my Halide Bridge.

[Macca]

Bit perfect is not a red herring, as discussed some software resamples the audio, which is audible.

Don't use re-sampling software then. My point is tiny inaccuracies/ differences in the file will not be audible, and audiophiles have a habit of obsessing about the irrelevant stuff whilst completely ignoring what is relevant.

[Yomanze]

Don't use re-sampling software then. My point is tiny inaccuracies/ differences in the file will not be audible, and audiophiles have a habit of obsessing about the irrelevant stuff whilst completely ignoring what is relevant.

I totally agree.

[Jimbo]

Don't use re-sampling software then. My point is tiny inaccuracies/ differences in the file will not be audible, and audiophiles have a habit of obsessing about the irrelevant stuff whilst completely ignoring what is relevant.

That maybe but how the files are handled before they get to your DAC is paramount.

[Macca]

That maybe but how the files are handled before they get to your DAC is paramount.

The problem is that is a big black hole. The computing side isn't the issue, that works on mathematics so the outcomes are certainties, we can tell exactly what is happening. That's why you never have any problems with printing that Word document and all the letters are in the wrong place.

But with digital audio we are listening to the outcome so different standards apply. It isn't a question of getting the data from one place to another 100% intact, that's easy. It's what you transmit along with the data - i.e electronic noise and interference piggy-backs along with it. The subjective result is a 'thickening' of the sound, hash, glare and general unpleasantness.

Mostly this is a result of the power supply in the transport or streamer. The better the power supply, the better the sound. This is why your dedicated streamer sounds so much better than your MacBook. It's also why the top of the line cd players I have sound better than my budget players. This is no secret, the Japs knew this right from the start and used it differentiate their product lines; as you went up the range, the power supplies in a given unit multiplied and became more sophisticated.

Compared to this what chip set the DAC uses or what methods of processing it uses, what bandwith it will handle etc etc is neither here nor there. You have the option to play with different filters and said you found next to no difference.

That's also what I have found with a Sony I have with 4 filter settings. The sound difference between them is not identical but I would not want to put money on being able to reliably identify the difference if I was listening to them blind. And the very subtle differences are presentational, they are not differences in the quality of the sound.

The quality of the sound is entirely dependant on the quality of the engineering, and not on anything that is happening in the 'digital domain'.

Marketing departments would have you think otherwise because quality power supplies are not cheap to implement and not something that will capture the imagination of the typical punter.

Whereas tell them it uses the latest whiz bang DAC chips and upsamples to 384 KHz (big numbers are always better then small numbers) and they will be all over it because, although they don't really understand it, they can relate to this sort of talk from their home/work computing experience where the latest processor and a larger memory is demonstrably superior.

[struth]

True. Lol

[Jimbo]

Like I said its how the information is handled before it gets to the DAC. Not sure any CD player has the ability to stop noise getting into the system, that is why FBA has been adopted by most digital audiophiles using steamers rather than noisy CD players.