Music Servers, Do They Matter?


The Occasional Podcast host Brian Hunter is joined by digital designer and Innous Director Nuno Vitorin. 

In more analog mindset, does it make as much sense to evaluate a separate music server in the same terms as one might consider a cartridge to a turntable? In addition to thinking about the why, Nuno discusses much of the how – including where to get started and what to look for. 

The discussion starts at the very beginning of source material. Listen, learn and hopefully adapt your way to a better listening experience. 

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/03/23/top-talks-music-servers-how-everything-matters/?utm_source...
128x128lalitk
My understanding of why the quality of the streaming source or server matters is because of the EMI that these components can generate. General purpose computing devices such as PCs and Mac aren't focused on minimizing the amount of electrical noise that they generate. That has been my experience from going from a laptop to a dedicated streamer as well from hands-on experimentation. A reason to get a separate streamer & DAC is that you might like the sound of one company's DACs but they might not make the best streamers. Some things I've read about digital sound quality from people that should know:

Bob Stuart, Meridian Audio"Of course digital bits-are-bits and with due care, each of the three interfaces (USB, Toslink, coaxial) can deliver the same data at approximately the same time. But the audio we hear is analog and real-world devices are subject to a variety of interferences including data-induced jitter, other process-induced jitter, (and) common- and differential-mode electromagnetic noise. In the ideal world, the data are clocked in by and buffered in the DAC (asynchronous mode) and then de-jittered before conversion. In my experience this can never be perfect, just made closer and closer to irrelevance."

Gordon Rankin (introduced the digital audio world to asynchronous USB transfer)
When I transfer a file over USB to an external hard drive it doesn’t make transfer errors – the file at the destination is the same as the source – so why should sending digital audio over USB be any different? https://darko.audio/2016/05/gordon-rankin-on-why-usb-audio-quality-varies/


A simple model of EMI-induced timing jitter in digital circuits, its statistical distribution and its effect on circuit performance, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 45, NO. 3, AUGUST 2003: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/640/1/robinsonmp2.pdf
@lalitk Hi Lalitk, how are you my friend? Time has fly-by pretty fast. I have the flagship T+A SD3100HV for more than a year and now I want to take my streaming to another level. Do you have any suggestion for me?
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I do not think so if Fibre streaming is used. There are some comments by Lumin X1 users on this thread that seem to contradict what I am saying, but I want more feedback before I am convinced.

I have not tested this with an expensive Music Server. I did ask this same question as the OP's on the ComputerAudiophile.com site. The guy running the site said that he will do an article on this issue. I trust the guys over there when it comes to computer audio. A Music Server is also a computer.