![]() Many of these same believers and conveyors of difference have expensive hi-fi and audiophile tweaks languishing in untreated rooms with poorly placed speakers etc. Of course those that drop the cash swear blind it works (to admit otherwise would be to admit to having been fleeced) and not only fervently defend their position, but continue with the myth propagation and claim that the very same science that brought us hi-fi doesn’t understand its nuances and intricacies, that differences cannot be measured or that we don’t know what to measure. Sad thing is most of it is utter bull and relies on pseudo science, misinformation and resultant expectation bias - quite clever really from a marketer’s perspective…it’s called demand generation. Audiophile grade network switches can’t be far behind. Now we have audiophile USB and Ethernet cables as well as a myriad of low power computing devices sold at ludicrous prices and touted as audiophile transports, and operating system tweaks promising a new nirvana. Now it’s mainstream and can no longer be ignored it’s the best thing since sliced bread but most of the audiophile press remains as inept today as it was in the early days of streaming. I remember the audiophile press decrying streaming as inferior, not hi-fi and countless articles authored by inept reviewers clearly demonstrating that they didn’t understand the first thing about it. jitter is still touted by some as an enormous problem whereas it’s well understood as are the methods of reducing it to the point it’s irrelevant in the scheme of things. I agree people listen with their ears, albeit what they hear is often influenced by expectation bias created by the audiophile press, other audiophiles and marketing hype e.g. Daniel ( notes that JRiver employs filters, which may mean the appropriate comparison to Roon is with JRiver filtering off or Roon/HQ Player filtering on. It’s important, however, not to compare apples with oranges. I would be surprised if people could hear a difference between two bit-perfect software players over a network connection to a renderer, but can more readily accept that people might hear a difference with a direct connection. The renderer becomes the significant processor and because it doesn’t have to run a GUI or do anything except buffer Ethernet input into (usually) USB output, it can be highly optimised (microRendu). If, however, you send output over an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network connection to a renderer (SOSE, microRendu, Aries, Pi, Aurender etc.) then the influence of the source computer becomes insignificant. or hear a difference between Windows Roon and Linux Roon. This is why people use software like Audiophile Optimiser, Fidelizer, Process Lasso etc. This is in addition to issues of noise from the computer’s power supply etc. If a setup has a direct output from the computer to the DAC (USB, coax or toslink) then many people find that the processing within the computer can affect the sound. ![]() I used to very much believe digital data was immune to such effects, but I’m starting to believe otherwise (as it relates to DACs), which of course could just make me deluded also - it’s very hard to say! Which is no doubt why there’s so much confusion and uncertainty about whats going on. My guess is when people say one sounds better than the other, they are implying the better sounding one ‘does’ something to make that happen. the DAC is doing something subtly different based on a subtly differently delivered set of data). Similar theories in signal integrity/noise/jitter reduction etc are alleged to be addressed by some computer based players to the extent they ‘sound’ different (i.e. Isn’t the notion (at least for all bit-perfect players) that it’s not just getting the data to the DAC, but how you get it there, that may make a difference? I’m not agreeing or disagreeing, but just that there seems to be a consensus that an Aurender W20 over USB will result in a better sound than a stock mac mini over USB because of the signal integrity. I’ve seen other comments about the ‘sound’ of Roon, but I don’t get how Roon has any ‘sound’ at all, when it simply presents a bit perfect stream to either a DAC or audio endpoint ? Surely any change in the audio has to be caused by something other than Roon ?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |