Dear Kevin,
So, good question. And well, let's start with this one from yesterday :
Hi, Peter,
[...]
Thank you, again, for your attention. BTW, the SQ in 2.07 is outstanding! It is amazing that you can keep making improvements like this.
Cheers,
Joseph
It is about the "keep making improvements" because that is what audio playback software can do, for the handful of software players with this explicit SQ target on the market. Please notice that among those is not JRiver at all, no matter how much they want that (or how you may feel that, without the real reference). But it is OK to think that JRiver could theoretically do that just the same (because theoretically it could be true indeed).
Not so with the streamers, unless someone hacks it/them and applies some more difficult approvement. But say that the market is too small (for the device in question) to start doing it (but it happened in the past).
Such a streamer (also those of 20K+) is made for comfort and not for the best SQ. And oh, I am not saying that the manufacturers of concern don't do their best to make it good sounding, but it is just a computer again and the focus is the comfort. And do notice that this comfort you pay for, is for both a computer and a user interface and when it is presented to you, it is fixed.
Btw, not much different with a Mac and JRiver, but at least the JRiver part could easily change. The Mac is already more difficult, but is still doable.
Compare the above with a Windows PC of your liking (of the liking of some manufacturer again which makes it a machine for audio) and the high quality software of your liking.
My response now swiftly comes to an end, because a few in this world combine this into a still flexible product with our XXHighEnd as an example of it (as part of the audio playing product as a whole); It allows for tweaking the Operating System so it is prepared for playing audio instead of manipulating Excel sheets and with a couple of golden tips on how to set up a PC for audio (which means reading a whole forum), you will be set much better. More difficult, more hurdles to take, but in the end more satisfactory because just "better".
In the end the latter can end up in a 1+1=3 situation and the typical (but also unique) example is our Stealth PC. This is just a relatively normal PC but it anticipates what the software can do to keep it (literally) cool. So first we have the XXHighEnd software which turns a 130W consumption into 30W consumption (for some reference system), next we start building a PC which knows that situation in advance, next we remove all the active cooling and lastly we build in a linear power supply because with 30W this is easy to accomplish, even internally in the small case and will without active cooling.
So that was the long answer.
The short answer would have been : If you buy a hardware streamer you buy something which is fixed from all angles and wasn't even made for the best SQ. But you plug it in the wall without thinking and you play (ripped) CD's, play from Tidal or use Roon.
All in a mediocre SQ, no matter you have a perfect DAC behind it. The front-end is just as important ...
(and as you know by know, even a stupid thing like a USB cable implies a difference of night and day)
I could add that streaming as such is the worst scenario for good Sound Quality. This is somewhat harder to explain, but relates to what software like XXHighEnd does in order to eliminate bad (SQ) influences because the Operating System performing other processes as well, while streaming adds a 100 fold of such processes. This is also how the software should attack the modern streaming by turning that into normal playback again - as if it were local - which is exactly what XXHighEnd does.
And no, this was not an advertisement for XXHighEnd, but it tries to show you a few aspects (of huge work) which impacts sound quality which you possibly did not know about.
Thanks and regards,
Peter
