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A $15k music streamer reviewed on stereophile

voodooless

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Not only that but your fish will taste better!!!

"Improvements over Blue Duplexes including a more refined sound with a larger sound stage, and more natural tambor."

According to the Webster dictionary:

Definition of tambor

1: any of several puffer fish
2: a red rockfish (Sebastodes ruberrimus) of the Pacific coast


Yeah so I am going to "invest" thousands of dollars in equipment from an "audio" company that cant spell timbre?
Please note that puffer fish tent to be extremely poisonous ;). Better not eat them.
 

TrevorD

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The review states:

"The company works with two manufacturers of industrial motherboards to ensure optimal tuning for precision and noise performance. "Tuning is really only available to a motherboard manufacturer," Jenkins said. "With their help, we can optimize audio performance. This gets us high-quality, great-sounding motherboards, albeit at a relatively high cost compared to using standard motherboards."

The implication is hardware level changes... in theory that means moving components around, changing tracings etc... which as I say would be expensive/time consuming.

Peter
Or maybe they are L Y I N G
 

jammer

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Do we have any measurements yet. If someone says it sounds good what's so hard to believe about that.
If it does measure well and everyone is convinced that this is the only criteria that matters the price won't make any difference 'objectively speaking'. If it measures either well or poorly and sounds like shit, it's a piece of shit.
You guys are just being single-minded ass-holes not making any valid arguments and always deliberately understating
any opinion based on the only thing that matters in this business, LISTENING to music. Leave the guy alone.
Thank you, finally someone with common sense..For any of their over-rationalized theories in this thread to be true, it means that we have magically defined exactly how we all hear and that we can precisely measure everything that pertains to it. All of this, and most other theories like it on this site implies that our knowledge is so far advanced that we understand precisely how the human body senses vibration and exactly how our brain processes this information, and beyond understanding how all of that happens, we have electronic instruments that are capable of precisely measuring everything that pertains to this process...But by all means, keep the dream alive with this website, even pay into it!

I don't in any way have any disdain towards anyone here, I am sure you're all lovely when you don't have a keyboard, nor do I feel the need to do anything but create a counter-argument to these absolutely ridiculous theories that measurements are the final word in hifi. Peace to all during this holiday season.

-The End
 
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BDWoody

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.For any of their over-rationalized theories in this thread to be true, it means that we have magically defined exactly how we all hear and that we can precisely measure everything that pertains to it.

I don't think anyone claims that.

We simply ask for evidence when unlikely claims are made, particularly when those claims include encouraging others to spend their time and money on something almost guaranteed to be a waste of both.

Evidence would be controlled listening tests or actual measurements showing the improvement.

'I believe my ears!' isn't enough unfortunately.
 

Killingbeans

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For any of their over-rationalized theories in this thread to be true, it means that we have magically defined exactly how we all hear and that we can precisely measure everything that pertains to it.

Why would that be necessary? Do a controlled listening test. Find out whether the thing being heard is caused by an actual audible change in the sound waves or something else. If the tests shows that the change isn't caused by the ususal suspects (volume difference, bias, shifted attention and so on), then can you start looking for new types of measurements.

Hitchens's razor gets mentioned a lot on ASR, and it fits here too. The idea that the hardware in a streamer would do wonders for sound quality is so far-fetched, that it requires some really hard hitting evidence before it can have any hope of being taken the slightest bit seriously.
 

antcollinet

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Thank you, finally someone with common sense..For any of their over-rationalized theories in this thread to be true, it means that we have magically defined exactly how we all hear and that we can precisely measure everything that pertains to it. All of this, and most other theories like it on this site implies that our knowledge is so far advanced that we understand precisely how the human body senses vibration and exactly how our brain processes this information, and beyond understanding how all of that happens, we have electronic instruments that are capable of precisely measuring everything that pertains to this process...But by all means, keep the dream alive with this website, even pay into it!

I don't in any way have any disdain towards anyone here, I am sure you're all lovely when you don't have a keyboard, nor do I feel the need to do anything but create a counter-argument to these absolutely ridiculous theories that measurements are the final word in hifi. Peace to all during this holiday season.

-The End


The point is - in the case of a streamer, we don't even need to do any measurements. We just need to understand the engineering. I'll re-quote my own post:
It's a streamer - it has one job, and that is to transfer an audio file from wherever it is stored (internally or on a server somewhere) to a DAC. Either it can do that competently - in which case it will "sound" exactly the same as every other competent streamer. Or it can't - in which case it is an expensive piece of junk.

If it is competent, then it is no better than my £100 Raspberry Pi streamer which is equally competent at transferring the file to a DAC. Which makes a 15K streamer around 99% snake oil.

If a streamer can transfer the data from wherever it is, to the DAC without introducing errors, that is all it has to do. Nothing else in the streamer will influence the sound in any way - if it is even vaguely competently designed. And ANY other competently designed streamer that can do that same thing without errors will sound exactly the same - including my £100 Pi.

It doesn't matter how much you pay for a streamer, or what "high end" audio components are inside, or how many exotic materials are used. It will still sound exactly the same as any other streamer that manages to climb the very low bar of transferring the file error free to the DAC. (assuming it is used with the same (competently designed) external system elements (Dac, Amp etc))
 
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voodooless

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nor do I feel the need to do anything but create a counter-argument to these absolutely ridiculous theories that measurements are the final word in hifi.
So what’s the actual argument?
For any of their over-rationalized theories in this thread to be true, it means that we have magically defined exactly how we all hear and that we can precisely measure everything that pertains to it.
It is the total opposite. Magic is what is needed to come up with something that would start as a theory on why this streamer would sound any different from any other.

Listen to it they say.. yes! Do that in a controlled test, if you can hear a difference, we can have a decent conversation. Come up with a decent scientific theory as to why this thing would sound any different, we can also have a decent conversation.

… you have to try it, said the homeopathy “doctor”… :facepalm:

Humans are very fallible, better to acknowledge and act accordingly.
 
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watchnerd

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And ANY other competently designed streamer that can do that same thing without errors will sound exactly the same - including my £100 Pi.

I need to get a better Pi.

My old Pi 2 acting a a Roon Endpoint didn't cost 100 quid.

I'm probably leaving performance gains on the table with such an old budget Pi.

(I won't even go into the skanky $7 USB cable connecting it to the DAC)
 

antcollinet

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PI4 8GB is about £74. Add a PSU, SD Card and a couple of cables and your there or thereabouts.

Don't need anything like 8GB for a streamer - but it may be repurposed later on as a light PC, so maxed it out.
 

watchnerd

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PI4 8GB is about £74. Add a PSU, SD Card and a couple of cables and your there or thereabouts.

Don't need anything like 8GB for a streamer - but it may be repurposed later on as a light PC, so maxed it out.

But what do I get for the extra money compared to what I'm using now?
 

Jinjuku

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With their help, we can optimize audio performance. This gets us high-quality, great-sounding motherboards, albeit at a relatively high cost compared to using standard motherboards

How? There isn't any D/A conversion done on this joke of a device itself.
 

antcollinet

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Jinjuku

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PI4 8GB is about £74. Add a PSU, SD Card and a couple of cables and your there or thereabouts.

Don't need anything like 8GB for a streamer - but it may be repurposed later on as a light PC, so maxed it out.

Yep, running 4GB Pi4 as endpoints for JRiver for $128 in a kit. Server is a Dell R620 for $299. I'm willing to race for pink slips vs the Antipodes using Serinus's ears as the finish line.
 

fatoldgit

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How? There isn't any D/A conversion done on this joke of a device itself.

No clue... just quoting their marketing material.

They would say noise probably but in my opinion, building a big arsed server with all those cores and all that memory and all that extra power needed cant lead to lower noise.

As I stated previously, the best (and obvious) topology is some server (as big as needed to sustain your upsampling requirements) in another room and a low powered end point (no disk, ram boot etc) into your DAC.

It makes no sense (to me) to hook something like this (sitting in your rack) into your DAC.

Peter

PS. And related to my hypothesis (based on looking at systems on the internet for decades) that most (> 70%) people who buy mega buck stuff are generally not interested in sound but rather the "look how much I spent", we have another system on Mono and Stereo, which again lives in a marble temple (to bad sound).

The speakers are around $US 65K and no clue about the electronics in this install..but no effort has been made to get any sound quality from these speakers.

 

watchnerd

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No clue... just quoting their marketing material.

They would say noise probably but in my opinion, building a big arsed server with all those cores and all that memory and all that extra power needed cant lead to lower noise.

As I stated previously, the best (and obvious) topology is some server (as big as needed to sustain your upsampling requirements) in another room and a low powered end point (no disk, ram boot etc) into your DAC.

It makes no sense (to me) to hook something like this (sitting in your rack) into your DAC.

Peter

PS. And related to my hypothesis (based on looking at systems on the internet for decades) that most (> 70%) people who buy mega buck stuff are generally not interested in sound but rather the "look how much I spent", we have another system on Mono and Stereo, which again lives in a marble temple (to bad sound).

The speakers are around $US 65K and no clue about the electronics in this install..but no effort has been made to get any sound quality from these speakers.


Looks nice.

I don't want my living room to look like a sound treated recording studio.
 

jammer

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It's always those little wanks with wee little willy's trying to show off with their money to stoke their wee little egos.

Says the guy living in his Mom's basement...Rationalize much?

Every single one of you on this site are all little teeny furry adorable little sheep. Following a complete charlatan, perpetrating his intellectual dishonesty to an audience incapable of hearing and seeing.

All while he sits behind the curtain laughing while he gains notoriety and makes money from his followers. It's literally a form of entertainment for me to watch. I'll check in again, for now, have fun being exploited publicly by your dishonest leader.

Amir you should be ashamed of yourself for what you've done to these idiots.
 

Doodski

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Says the guy living in his Mom's basement...Rationalize much?

Every single one of you on this site are all little teeny furry adorable little sheep. Following a complete charlatan, perpetrating his intellectual dishonesty to an audience incapable of hearing and seeing.

All while he sits behind the curtain laughing while he gains notoriety and makes money from his followers. It's literally a form of entertainment for me to watch. I'll check in again, for now, have fun being exploited publicly by your dishonest leader.

Amir you should be ashamed of yourself for what you've done to these idiots.
Rant much?
 

BDWoody

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