STREAMER - WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

@helomech  wrote, "All that stuff you “learned” is nothing more than marketing nonsense that you’ve read or been told."

RESPONSE.  <sigh> Yawn. Ok.  You got me.  I read brochures with a bottle of lube and post to forums.

@helomech Support your position.  You still haven’t addressed my sincere inquiry about why there is absolutely no way he (i.e., me) is going to hear differences in streamer quality because I have an all-tube system. Please explain.  You seem to dislike tubes.

Perhaps you’re describing the performance limits of your system and trying to apply it's performance to mine.  What are you listening to that allows you to arrive at your conclusion? 

@mdalton  wrote "SNR is absolutely relevant to streamer noise."  

Uh, yes sir, I agree Signal-to-Noise ratio is relevant to a streamer’s noise (That’s like saying the blueness of the sky is relevant to how blue it is.).   Here’s what I said: 

The BAT’s quietest path is USB

The BAT DAC has 3 noise control layers: 

1. Galvanic

2. Asynchronous clocking which reduces RF, ground noise and packet-timing variance.  

3. Local power regulation that places voltage‑regulating components close to the circuit blocks they power.

Your real issue is my position about SNR being irrelevant.  The reality is that USB sends data--not analog audio.  I assert, based on "marketing nonsense," that a streamer’s SNR never enters the DAC with asynchronous USB. Only data packets do. The DAC — not the streamer — sets the system’s SNR limit because Asynchronous USB isolates the DAC’s clock from the streamer--The DAC controls the master clock.  So, The streamer’s timing quality (and therefore its SNR) is irrelevant to the DAC’s clocking.

Please explain why you disagree with what I’ve written?  I'm genuinely curious (why else would anyone be here?) It’s easy to say "You’re wrong."  It’s another to support that position. 

You also said: “SNR is one of the least relevant factors when comparing streamers in revealing systems.”. That’s what I disagreed with, and I didn’t say you were wrong (though I did think so, lol!), and I said “respectfully”.  But as you can plainly see from the Paul Miller measurements, a system’s SNR can be dragged down by a noisy streamer, a dac, an amp or a preamp.  It just depends where the noise is coming from.  For example, if the power supply of a streamer leaks noise, and your DAC doesn’t filter that noise, it can manifest in the output stage of the DAC (which is in the analog realm). And that has nothing at all to do with the data packets.  

Similarly, if your DAC is noisy (e.g., noise generated in the output stage that lowers the SNR), there’s nothing you can do on the streamer side to remove that noise. And I think that’s the point @helomech was making.

Last point: SNR clearly isn’t the full story for a DAC, amp or preamp.  It gives you insight into the noise floor, and how resolving your system might be.  But there’s so much more to sound (which of course explains my love of tubes).  But for streamers, SNR really tells you a lot; that’s because noise is the only differentiator among streamers.