No quality is lost but you are comparing apples and oranges. The network is sending digital data, virtually error-free and without relevant timing issues. It is only when the data is converted to analog that "standard stereo RCA cables" and whether those are involved depends on the structure of your system.

liquidsun wrote:

Nowadays we see many of the manufacturers ship their receivers with integrated network cards. Good example would be Yamaha R-N301 which says you can play your music from laptop via network using AirPlay. My question is how much quality is lost (if any) when listening via network compared to standard stereo RCA cables.
What are your thoughts?

I don't want to make any assumptions, so taking your inquiry at face value, it's not so much the cabling as it is the ENTIRE delivery stream.

As an example, if you use AirPlay (and the implied Ethernet connection) to stream a music file above 96 kHz, AirPlay will downsample the file's frequency. Therefore, AirPlay is the culprit for the loss, and not the Ethernet cable. (SIDE NOTE: you'd likely be better off using DLNA than AirPlay for anything above 96 kHz.)

If you were to play a 24-bit/192 kHz (or higher) file through a DAC that's connected to the amp/receiver via RCA, any loss would be dependent upon the structure of your system (as Kal Rubinson stated above).

mtymous1 wrote:

If you were to play a 24-bit/192 kHz (or higher) file through a DAC that's connected to the amp/receiver via RCA, any loss would be dependent upon the structure of your system...

Should read "If you were to play a lossless file through a DAC that's connected to the amp/receiver via RCA, any loss would be dependent upon the structure of your system...

Basically, you cannot send the same signal through a digital connection and through analog RCA interconnects. In addition, there are different modes of digital transmission. So, there is no answer to the question as asked.

However, there is no reason to think that, in practice or in principle, digital is inferior to analog.

OTOH, I have no experience with that Yamaha or with AirPlay or what possible limitations they have.

liquidsun wrote:

OK i agree, the comparison is bad. What i was going to ask is: Listening to lossless audio FLAC file on my laptop trough network and trough RCA cable - would there be any difference?

Your use case is more of a DAC comparison - not a cable comparison.

Let's assume a plain ol' 16-bit/44.1 kHz, CD-quality FLAC file. If you were to stream that FLAC file over the network, the Yamaha R-N301's built-in DAC would convert the file. If you were to play the same file over a 3.5mm/RCA cable between the laptop and R-N301, the laptop's built-in DAC would convert the file.

If both the laptop and R-N301 support playing 24/192 FLAC files - and that particular Yamaha does - it is still a DAC comparison.

The R-N301 supports FLAC (up to 192kHz) via DLNA: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_022RN301/Yamaha-R-N301.html?search=Yamaha_R-N301&skipvs=T

...but keep in mind that AirPlay downsamples anything above 96 kHz and that is still not a comparison of cables, but of streaming protocols.

liquidsun wrote:

One side question, is there a huge difference with an average PC sound card DAC and average CD Player DAC ?

I am unaware of any resources that have aggregated measurement data for such DACs in order to objectively compare averages. Even if there are, you'd be better off listening to various components to determine which sounds best to you (and within your budget, if you have one).