• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Thought I'd treat myself to a new Streamer.

Purité Audio

Master Contributor
Industry Insider
Barrowmaster
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
9,051
Likes
12,150
Location
London

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,376
Likes
234,530
Location
Seattle Area
What a riot. Starting with this paragraph:

"(A) The Laminar Streamer was not based on any prior existing core technology except the FAT32 file system that the SD card has to be formatted in. Everything else was custom built by LessLoss from the ground up, which includes every line of custom LessLoss Direct Drive audiophile OS. Not based at all on Linux, MAC OS, or Windows, this is a completely purpose built endeavor, and costed LessLoss a lot of programmer time. It may not come as a surprise that professional programmers who can do such a thing charge pretty much the same for their time as well-established surgeons. And time it costed dearly, what with 6 years of development. "

There are single board computers costing less than $50 that have all the hardware for a streamer and DIY protocol stacks that wouldn't take much to build such a device. That aside, who is he kidding with the last comment? Embedded programmers make well under $100K and some under $50K. I know of no surgeon who makes "so little."
 

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,376
Likes
234,530
Location
Seattle Area
Then there is this:

"(B) Why 6 years? When you design from the ground up, your circuitry and your operating system go hand in hand. If you change a line of code, you need to change the length of a trace. If you change the layout of a trace, you will need to change a line of code. "

Does the author have any hardware/software design experience? If I change the length of a PC board trace to a capacitor, what line of code would I change and for what purpose? The answer is none. This is a little embedded computer with little to no software dependency on what the length of traces are. The lengths determine reliability and emissions of the device, not functional differences seen in code.
 

RayDunzl

Grand Contributor
Central Scrutinizer
Joined
Mar 9, 2016
Messages
13,204
Likes
16,986
Location
Riverview FL
Maybe his code and hardware contractors were milking their assignment.

That's never happened, right?
 

Sal1950

Grand Contributor
The Chicago Crusher
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
14,073
Likes
16,609
Location
Central Fl
"(A) The Laminar Streamer was not based on any prior existing core technology except the FAT32 file system that the SD card has to be formatted in. Everything else was custom built by LessLoss from the ground up, which includes every line of custom LessLoss Direct Drive audiophile OS. Not based at all on Linux, MAC OS, or Windows, this is a completely purpose built endeavor, and costed LessLoss a lot of programmer time. It may not come as a surprise that professional programmers who can do such a thing charge pretty much the same for their time as well-established surgeons. And time it costed dearly, what with 6 years of development. "
Open source code hackers do this sort of thing daily the world over for FREE
Can high end audio get any sillier before it implodes.
I await the day.
 

FrantzM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
4,339
Likes
7,737
LessLoss were at one point a joke They were of the Quantum things persuasion.. Might still be for all I know... they found a way to strike the right audiophile chords..
The thing is some will buy it and extol its "dark" background, galactic-wide soundstage and PRATT... Oh My!! What a pile of horse manure .. And of course the sound will change with Ethernet cables...
 

Dan Wiggins

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2016
Messages
7
Likes
10
At RMAF we used Sonos CONNECTs to stream Tidal, to a nice little Channel Islands Audio DAC, which fed a Channel Islands Audio headphone amp. Amazon Kindle Fire as the controller. Cheap, simple, effective, millions of songs available at redbook or better - and not a single person (enthusiast, press, or manufacturer) mentioned anything negative about the setup. Streaming is awesome and it can be done so cheaply...

We used the Sonos system just because the UI on the tablets is so easy to use, and we can simply and easily do 6 in a single room.
 

Sal1950

Grand Contributor
The Chicago Crusher
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
14,073
Likes
16,609
Location
Central Fl
Oh, you said Streamer, I thought you said Steamer, never mind.
 

Phelonious Ponk

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Feb 26, 2016
Messages
859
Likes
215
There are plenty of people who will sell you a hobbled computer with a poor interface "purpose designed" to play audio. It's all BS. This is just the same BS, priced high enough to attract Russian oligarchs and Arab princes.
 

fas42

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,818
Likes
191
Location
Australia
LessLoss were at one point a joke They were of the Quantum things persuasion.. Might still be for all I know... they found a way to strike the right audiophile chords..
The thing is some will buy it and extol its "dark" background, galactic-wide soundstage and PRATT... Oh My!! What a pile of horse manure .. And of course the sound will change with Ethernet cables...
But the thing is that they do take notice of the things that many listeners can hear ... and then charge staggering money for "solutions". Unfortunately, this tribal thing in the audio game is severely crippling the speed at which real progress in understanding what's important is made - it's tiresomely slow, takes decades for things to evolve ...
 
Top Bottom