It's your streamer, not your modem

@bruce19 I see your point.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for a more expensive streamer, just streamers with better buffers, and honestly I have no idea who they are.  It's not a specification I often see published or mentioned in reviews.

Dollar for dollar, room treatment is much more important than an Ethernet switch. 

Is streamer A for $4,000 better than streamer B at $1,000 for managing Internet weather?  I have no idea. In many other areas I've seen exorbitant prices without any guarantee of better performance.  One example is galvanic isolation of USB ports.  It should be standard today but it isn't, even on expensive streamers. Sometimes they have it and sometimes they don't.

I'm doing eveything wrong.

I stream through my Asus ROG laptop computer which is connected to my network through wifi. I hook up the laptop to my Berkeley Alpha USB/Alpha Reference DAC Series 2 MQA, via cheap USB cable. When I play a Qobuz file and I'm careful to play the same version as a CD I own, the sound is identical to the CD played through my Jay's CD 3 Mk III into my Berkeley DAC.

When people implement all this esoteric stuff to their digital infrastructure, do they ever compare the sound to a CD? Does anybody ever get to the point where streamed music sounds better than the same song/version played from a CD? How bad did the streamed music sound to begin with?

I don't see how a streamed file with all of the complicating issues that have been described in this thread can ever sound better than the same file played from a CD through a good quality transport into the same DAC.

I don't get it.

@erik_squires I guess buffering could be done either on the music server, or the streamer itself. For instance, I have an M1 Mac mini that serves as my roon hub, and it delivers the stream to various endpoints on my home network. I suppose it might be possible, even probable that the endpoints have some degree of buffering built into them. My hunch is that they do. But you’re right I never see this mentioned or discussed in tech specs. I would guess that buffering at the endpoint is not as critical as where the stream comes into the home, but that could be a legitimate point of discussion.

@8th-note 

I'm doing eveything wrong. I stream through my Asus ROG laptop computer which is connected to my network through wifi. I hook up the laptop to my Berkeley Alpha USB/Alpha Reference DAC Series 2 MQA, via cheap USB cable.

Well, certainly not wrong in my book! As a previous apartment dweller, I know how bad Wifi signals can be in a densely populated apartment building, but in a home with sparse neighbors it's perfectly serviceable.   There are always two things I worry about when using a PC or laptop as the source:

• Digital ground loops
• Power supply noise

If those two issues are mitigated I think they're perfectly fine.  One way to test for this with a laptop is to let your laptop discharge to around 50% and then plug your power supply into the AC. See if you hear any noticeable difference in playback quality.

To prevent these issues I keep any computers outside of the clean side of power conditioners and use a USB isolator.  The further away your PC is from the stereo, the more important a USB isolator becomes, as ground loops are more likely to occur.

Otherwise, I never bother getting very esoteric.

I like this discussion... I think Eric, et-al are correct from the standpoint of buffering, however there are issues I’ve found with poor Ethernet regarding noise, etc... I just finished a response to a recent discussion on streaming services which I believe applies to this discussion...And Ethernet bandwidth is usually NOT the issue.  Here are parts of it which I believe apply.

.I had issues with streaming music versus the EXACT same album loaded on my Innuos ZENith MK3 with a Phoenix USB re-clocker feeding my Denafrips Terminator-Plus DAC. I use Qobuz which in my listening opinion sounds slightly better than Tidal. No matter what time of day though did streaming sound much better until I added in an Uptone-Audio EtherREGEN device between my Ethernet modem and the ZENith. Finally the music streamed was very close to that loaded onto the ZENith. I believe re-clocking the Ethernet signal with high-quality clocking and noise isolation from the EtherREGEN made all the difference no matter what time of day. It’s the most cost-effective $-for-$ I’ve spent for digital sonic improvement. My present cable internet service is ~300mbps. I will soon be going to fiber-optics with another ISP and their minimum service is ~500mbps. So, with this change I’ll know if anything improves, as I will keep both running and do a direct comparison before cancelling the cable service. I’ll let y’all know what I find ! In my opinion, I don’t think for audio you would need any more than what I have presently for internet speed as sonically the streamed music is extremely close (splitting hairs) to that stored on my music server. Finally, I understand about buffering and the moving of that data from the music-server to the DAC and theoretically it shouldn’t matter what’s going on upstream, however in practice, cleaning up the Ethernet signal in terms of noise, clocking and jitter obviously has made a difference in my system and listening. A positive thing for me that’s come out of this and a few other recent discussions is that I really need to look at the modem wall-wart as being a culprit in noise, etc. not only on the AC line, but in causing issues in the signal path as well... I have the modem wall-wart on a separate AC line from my listening space, but that doesn’t eliminate other signal-related anomalies created by it.