1. Home
  2. digital
  3. 188181-21

What makes One Music Server Sound Better than Another?

So this week my Mojo Audio DejaVu music server that I have used for the past 2-3 years crapped out. Benjamin at Mojo was more than helpful and the DejaVu is on its way to Mojo Audio where it will make a full recovery.

Thankfully, I still have my Antipodes DX2 Gen 3 (their former flagship) music server so I hooked it up. After wrestling with Roon protocols, transfers, and set-up menus, I was able to get it going so I have music. The DX and my Sonore Sig Rendu SE opt. are both connected to my network so the DX (like the DejaVu), is only being used as a Roon core and the Sig Rendu SE serves as the Roon endpoint for streaming Tidal and Qobuz, with a direct USB connection to my DAC.

The point of this thread is to ask, how come I perceive the the DejaVu server as sounding better than the Antipdes DX? In fairness, the differences I perceive are not great but it seems the DejaVu is fuller sounding, more tonally rich, and bolder. Is this why some here spend $10K+ on a Grimm, Taiko or something else?

If a server is basically a computer, sending digital information to a streamer/endpoint and, assuming that digital information is transmitted asynchronously and reclocked by the DAC’s master clock, and assuming noise is not the issue (i.e., both units are quiet and there is an optical break between the network and both the server and endpoint) then what are the technical reasons one should sound better than the other? It is not that I want to spend $10K+ on a music server with a lifespan of maybe 5 years before becoming obsolete, but I would like to understand what more you are getting for your money. So far, the best I can come up with is lower internal noise as the major factor.

As a side note to the above, when I thought things looked hopeless for getting set up, I scheduled a support session with Antipodes and, although I lucked into the solution before the meeting time, Mark Cole responded ready to help. Setting up the session was super easy and reminded me of the superior level of support I had come to enjoy from Antipodes during the time that the DX was my primary server, including multiple updates and 2 or 3 hardware upgrades, which prolonged the service life of the DX. Good products and good company.

 

mitch2
tonywinga's avatar
tonywinga
844 posts
 

Dear jji666, if only the world and streaming music were so simplistic as you would like.  Have you ever tried to catch a chicken?  In theory it is very simple.  Reach down and grab the chicken.  In practice it is much more difficult.

bill_k
961 posts
 

Digital data transmission can be perfect for computing, and bit perfect when comparing the data streams of many music servers/streamers/players at widely varying prices. What can account for significant sonic differences despite being bit perfect has to do with the timing of the data stream as well as embedded noise and jitter. The objectivists will argue that they’re just ones and zeros, but when handling audio data streams there’s much more involved than just the data being bit perfect.

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
1,103 posts
 

.  I have a fairly powerful machine currently running at 60x,

@jji666 and that is why it won't sound as good as dedicated music servers. 

mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
1,103 posts
 

@jji666 

That isn't to say that fancy servers don't have their advantages in terms of other functions and features, support, being well built, and looking cool.  But over a network, the packets don't know if they are coming from a supercomputer or a networked doorbell.  

It is not about the packets, it is not about the bitperfect-ness, the data will get there regardless, it is about noise. Read the link I posted previously from Antipodes. 

Imagine someone throwing a floating candy in a stream of water, and then 1 mile downstream you pick the candy out of the stream and eat it. A low grade computer is a contaminated sewer infested stream, with industrial waste, dark brown in color. A high end music server dedicated to audio the stream is pristine, perfectly clean, pure water. You get the candy with either stream, it is the same piece of candy either way, but which one would you eat. 

jji666
662 posts
 

Imagine someone throwing a floating candy in a stream of water, and then 1 mile downstream you pick the candy out of the stream and eat it. A low grade computer is a contaminated sewer infested stream, with industrial waste, dark brown in color. A high end music server dedicated to audio the stream is pristine, perfectly clean, pure water. You get the candy with either stream, it is the same piece of candy either way, but which one would you eat. 

I think you just nullified your own argument?  I'm not saying that to get into a fight - but you say it is the same piece of candy either way.  Yes it is the same, identical, exactly the same, not different, not dirtier, piece of candy.

In an IP network, the candy is broken down and re-integrated at the receiving end, exactly as it was before.  Other than the lag it would cause, it could go around the world, into space through a satellite, and back down and be the same.

What you are saying is that a dirtier computer sends different bits.  It does not, or it would not be bit perfect.

It just doesn't and can't work the way you describe.  Sewer infested stream, brown water, those are analog concepts if they can be applied at all.  What comes out of the network card, over the cable, and to the switch is identical regardless of your pollution analogy.  The network doesn't care about the brown water in the server.  It just doesn't.  

I am not saying that you should not purchase fancy servers.  But don't purchase them for sound quality unless you insist on plugging the DAC directly into it without using a streamer, which isn't a best practice according to Roon.  

More to discover