Streamers

" . . . I know I’m missing something here, probably ?"

@robelvick    Apologies if I misunderstand your question. Years ago, DAC’s did not have a USB input. They only had a coax, optical or AES/EBU connection to talk to the CD transport. When computer audio began, a ‘bridge’ component was needed for the DAC to talk to the computer – instead of the CD transport. This ‘bridge’ component had a USB input from the computer - but had a coax, optical or AES/EBU output to connect to the DAC. Over time, this ‘bridge’ component has evolved into a multi-featured ‘streamer’. Also, all new DAC’s have USB inputs. The bottom line is that streamers greatly improve the sound quality. In my system, I use an Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 5 from my laptop to my DAC. Music from Tidal sounds as good as my high-end CD transport.

jond +1 re: mastering/engineering. One of my favorite albums is ’The Great Summit’ featuring Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Recorded in 1961, re-mastered in 1990. On the track, ’It Don’t Mean a Thing’ written in 1931, Satchmo and his horn are in the room. I want to reach out and shake his hand. Back in the ’50’s and ’60’s, the engineers who recorded those greats (including Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, etal) knew what they were doing.

My tube DAC doesn’t have MQA processing either. Whenever I inadvertently play a MQA Master track on Tidal, it sounds really weird. The same track in Hi-Fi sounds excellent.

@jond Since my DAC only does Redbook, I went into the drivers menu for my Off-Ramp 5 and manually changed the default setting to 44.1 from 48. To my ears, it sounds a bit fuller and smoother. Does the Aries Mini have a similar menu? With Tidal HiFi, I do get a tiny bit of static when changing tracks - but no relay type clicking. When I said that MQA Masters sounded weird on my non-MQA DAC, I mean that it sounded like the music was coming out of a 55 gallon barrel drum.