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Improving on the stream of a combined streamer dac

I recently (foolishly) compared the streamed sound of my Electrocompanient

ECM 1 Mk II to internally stored digital downloads on the same ( ie not stored in my Small Green Computer server).  I was surprised how much better the downloaded files sounded.  Perhaps, I was naive to think otherwise.  So, I started looking at old audiogon threads to see if I could figure a quick and easy fix to up the sound of the streamer but found little that made sense or was affordable.  My question is whether I should continue to search, or if I should take it for what its worth and just listen to the music.  The rest of my digital front end:  Small Green computer server,  a Trendnet unmanaged switch and the ECM.  I use a Luna Orange ethernet cable from switch to ECM and a Purist Audio cable to the SGC.  Thanks for your advice and happy holidays to all.

rivinyl
soix
11,233 posts
 

What was your source for streaming?

hjdca's avatar
hjdca
248 posts
 

It depends what you are streaming.  If you are using a service like Qobuz and are streaming CD quality files or even higher resolution, on a higher end streamer & DAC, & a well setup ethernet,  they should sound almost or exactly identical to your downloaded files of the same resolution.

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
7,915 posts
 

There are several possible culprits -

1. Your network card/streamer in the ECM is not that great

2. The Luna Orange Ethernet cable is not that great

3. The master on streamed and downloaded albums isn’t exactly the same

Does the SGC have a digital out that you can use to feed the DAC? That would allow you to compare network card in ECM to a streamer via USB or Coax. 
Also, try to swap Ethernet cables - put the Purist on ECM and Luna Orange (never heard of this cable brand by the way) to feed SGC. Purist is a good cable for the money  Trendnet switch is fine (I use the 8 port 1g unmanaged in my system with no sound degradation). Experiment with different combinations. If ECM using its built in streamer is consistently worse, then you should probably consider picking up a good separate streamer  

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