Airplay vs my wired connection

[Megaken]

Hi.

I've put together a simple audio system consisting of a Raspberry Pi with volumio, going to a topping dac and then to an entry level marantz receiver, with a pair of decent speakers and a sub. With special attention paid to cables and placement of things it sounds good - clear vocals, no (audible) noise, rich and present.

Then I decided to test out airplay going from an iPhone straight to the receiver. And it sounds really different. I can't quite tell if it's better or worse (some tracks are better and other are worse). But airplay has less bass, but more clarity and texture (instrument separation) in mid-highs. Like it reveals aspects of music that simply aren't there when the same track is played through my main setup. Other times it's the opposite - when the recording has more details in the lower frequencies, airplay misses it. (for comparison I used local good quality flac files).

I guess what I'm trying to see is if there's a way to 'combine' the best aspects - find the golden middle and lock it in somehow.

Thoughts?

 

[epicure]

We use airplay as well. The interesting question is how the two different approaches measure.

Which iPhone did you use? How did you connect to the receiver?

 

[escksu]

USing airplay bypass the Topping DAC and using Marant DAC instead. Its going to sound slightly different. ANd then, I know some receivers perform A/D conversion for signal processing and then D/A again. This may cause some slight difference in the sound.

DEspite what pple say/thinks, DAC sound do vary a little partially due to the op-amps used. Some have combination of op-amps.

 

[Tangband]

Hi.

I've put together a simple audio system consisting of a Raspberry Pi with volumio, going to a topping dac and then to an entry level marantz receiver, with a pair of decent speakers and a sub. With special attention paid to cables and placement of things it sounds good - clear vocals, no (audible) noise, rich and present.

Then I decided to test out airplay going from an iPhone straight to the receiver. And it sounds really different. I can't quite tell if it's better or worse (some tracks are better and other are worse). But airplay has less bass, but more clarity and texture (instrument separation) in mid-highs. Like it reveals aspects of music that simply aren't there when the same track is played through my main setup. Other times it's the opposite - when the recording has more details in the lower frequencies, airplay misses it. (for comparison I used local good quality flac files).

I guess what I'm trying to see is if there's a way to 'combine' the best aspects - find the golden middle and lock it in somehow.

Thoughts?

Sometimes there is sample rate conversion going on in some units when using airplay.
I also think that your entry level Marantz receiver is way inferior to your Rasberry pi and your topping dac.
Most modern home theatre receivers does 48 kHz A/D-DA at the analog inputs - meaning worse sound.
But the proof is in the listening.

 

[Megaken]

Sometimes there is sample rate conversion going on in some units when using airplay.
I also think that your entry level Marantz receiver is way inferior to your Rasberry pi and your topping dac.
Most modern home theatre receivers does 48 kHz A/D-DA at the analog inputs - meaning worse sound.
But the proof is in the listening.

Yes I agree - that's why I was surprised when some mid-high frequencies sounded more revealing on the inferior internal avr dac (they're actually both using AK chips but the topping has a newer/better one like you said).

 

[bluefuzz]

Then I decided to test out airplay going from an iPhone straight to the receiver. And it sounds really different.

Does it sound 'different' if you airplay to Volumio? That should give you same signal chain for comparison with direct to Volumio ...

 

[Beershaun]

Also as tangband mentioned if your marantz is converting your rpi analog input to digital for the bass management and room correction then you are likely hearing the stack up of noise and distortion added through that conversion to digital and then back to analog.

 

[Megaken]

Does it sound 'different' if you airplay to Volumio? That should give you same signal chain for comparison with direct to Volumio ...

Yes it does - airplay to Volumio sounds like everything else from volumio. It's the DAC or cables or RPi..

 

[Megaken]

Also as tangband mentioned if your marantz is converting your rpi analog input to digital for the bass management and room correction then you are likely hearing the stack up of noise and distortion added through that conversion to digital and then back to analog.

Yep, definitely. It doesn't sound bad though. Until I heard the difference with airplay I thought it sounded great actually, I still really like it. I'm not complaining, just wanted to understand and get a better picture, which I think I do now.

 

[sarumbear]

Hi.

I've put together a simple audio system consisting of a Raspberry Pi with volumio, going to a topping dac and then to an entry level marantz receiver, with a pair of decent speakers and a sub. With special attention paid to cables and placement of things it sounds good - clear vocals, no (audible) noise, rich and present.

Then I decided to test out airplay going from an iPhone straight to the receiver. And it sounds really different. I can't quite tell if it's better or worse (some tracks are better and other are worse). But airplay has less bass, but more clarity and texture (instrument separation) in mid-highs. Like it reveals aspects of music that simply aren't there when the same track is played through my main setup. Other times it's the opposite - when the recording has more details in the lower frequencies, airplay misses it. (for comparison I used local good quality flac files).

I guess what I'm trying to see is if there's a way to 'combine' the best aspects - find the golden middle and lock it in somehow.

Thoughts?

You are hearing the difference in the DAC and possibly sample conversion.