It's your streamer, not your modem

@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.

Buffering and caching are two entirely different concepts.
Every device that intakes a data stream from network or ISP will buffer that data stream. It is done to create a stable consistent flow of data irrespective of the incoming speed. If it’s too fast, the buffering regulates it down to the data flow that meets the requirements of the downstream processing. Same with slower speeds…it will buffer the data up until the requirements are met. Buffer size us typically not that large and is dictated by the design and the needs of the downstream components/processors.The data is not maintained in the buffer for too long.

Caching is typically a much larger data store (could be in memory or SSD) that caches the result set and stores it. Depending on the design, most of the critical processing may actually happen from the cache and that could result in cleaner downstream processing because some of the impacting entities like noise, etc had already been taking care of. Reading and processing data from cache in this case is similar to reading a CD. You can perform the remaining processing and further purify the data when it is converted to either the USB or SPDIF outbound signal that the DAC will understand.

If you pull the Ethernet cable out of your streamer that utilizes buffering only, you will probably get about 30s to a minute of play.
In the case of caching, depending on the defined size of the cache and what’s been cached, you might be able to listen to the entire album or the entire playlist.

In my experience, the impact of Ethernet tweaks is less evident with streamers that use caching. For example, with the Aurender you can A/B two different Ethernet cables by caching the same song twice, version A with cable A and version B with your second cable. It would be impossible to do with the buffering only streamers. Data in the cache will remain until it rolls of due to capacity or you clear the cache manually.

Comparing a ripped file to Qobuz or Tidal might also be a fool’s errand. You can never possibly know and ensure that the two versions are the exact same master. So the difference in sound may be attributed not only to CD vs. Streaming but also to the version of the streamed album you’re comparing your cd or cd rip to. The most critical link in the chain is immediately before the DAC. If you’re using a server, what happens on that server as long as it’s properly sized, is far less critical.

Quality of the streamer is extremely important. You can never make a mediocre streamer sound like a great one by adding gadgets, no matter how expensive they are. Just like you can never soup up a Civic to perform like a proper sports car, no matter what you change or add to it (not knocking on Civics…great cars).

Just adding my $0.05 here…

@audphile1 - 

Let me help you.  Go to Wikipedia and look up "Transmission Control Protocol" and  then in there search for "flow control." I'd link it but A'gon's firewall is blocking URLs

You are confounding  "buffering" with "flow control."  There is almost no buffering at all in network devices between say Netflix and your TV.  None.  What there is, which you describe, is flow control, which limits the amount of data on the wire at any given time to prevent packets from being dropped.  This is entirely negotiated by the endpoints.  There are no mini-caches strategically placed around the Internet just in case your Internet provider is congested. 

Buffering is to use a cache for the sake of preventing interruptions via playback.  This is entirely an endpoint thing.

audphile1

Buffering and caching are two entirely different concepts.

They are different, but not in the way you explain.

@erik_squires is correct. Here's the link he's suggesting.