Media Server Reviews

Given multiple changes to my digital set-up between "then" and "now," I'm most comfortable saying that what stood out for me most about the Innuos Statement "then" was its warm and smooth signature.

Archimago is absolutely correct (as always) which raises the alarming prospect that Mr Jenkins either doesn't know his subject in sufficient detail to maintain credibility or is spurting nonsense because he thinks the gullible audiophile won't know any better. Neither option is particularly reassuring from someone trying to sell a tricked out PC for $15k!!

Well, almost.

Even though those artifacts are ultrasonic, that does not mean that they can't or won't cause problems. Almost all analog amplifiers become far less linear at ultrasonic frequencies, so intermodulation products from those ultrasonic artifacts can and will mix down to the audible range. This can be shown mathematically as well as through testing.

High sample rate audio data fed into a NOS DAC is ideal, as long as you apply some analog filtering after the converter to get rid of the ultrasonic conversion products. Because of the high sample rate, that filter can start rolling off way above the audio band and be relatively low order and still be effective.

Other than that one nit, I really like your solution. Bet that makes your day...

..he actually means "longer (slower) roll-off filters" -in contrast to brickwalls for instance- since that way his overall statement makes perfect sense. Having said that I still don't get what a server/streamer is all about. A small portion of this kind of cash buys you a top-end laptop with every imaginable sound-oriented upgrade which does everything a server/streamer does and then some; plus, in case it leaves you wanting, you are still left with a top-end laptop and some serious cash.

.. it is interesting to hear how different one & the same file can sound, if e.g. only the power supply to a streamer bridge is improved (well, in my system it is). This doesn't influence or improve "the file" but somehow enables e.g. the DAC to do its job in a better way (simply speaking), possibly by being less influenced by noisy ground, jitter, or any other real-world nastiness.

I would not relate the word (digital) "signal error" to file corruption or "file error".

In my recent experience, the number of files that do not end up corrupted after copying is satisfyingly large, but definitely smaller than a million, before one corrupted copy is produced, though I really hope your stats are better than mine. :)

Another interesting experiment along the same lines , whilst running music through Roon I give my server other CPU intensive jobs to do. Toggling these jobs on and off makes no discernible difference to the music and I can genuinely A/B this. So if taking CPU from 5% utilisation to >60% doesn't effect the sound, what role is the server (not the player) having?

That is certainly true, but really isn't the point.

The conversion back to analog isn't perfect. Even assuming that the bits are perfect (let's say that is so), the process is full of noise. There's logic gates toggling, power supplies powering, and so on. This can be measured and is true not just for audio systems but for any mixed signal processing system.

To make it all worse, the various boxes used are connected not only by the "interconnect" cables, whether digital or analog, but also through the AC mains. So, common mode noise finds its way pretty much everywhere. (For more information about this aspect, I'd suggest finding articles by Henry Ott and Ralph Morrison. Easy to search for.)

People can and do measure this stuff. For some reason, the audio world avoids it all in favor of arguing. Can't tell you why.

As logical and useful as this would be, somehow I don't think this is going to happen in the pages of the current Stereophile. Maybe back in the day when there used to me more investigative articles to help hobbyists understand the technology.

A shame. Hopefully one day mainstream magazines could return to the roots of helping readers make sense of what is or is not important rather than taking all claims basically at face value with no apparent ability to show skeptical inquiry given obvious facts about how the tech works.

I assume one can hear the difference already from another room.

clock timing is an issue, power supply quality, separation of good old usb vs network is an issue, so that I'd suggest to include also Volumio Primo* and Stack Audio Bridge or, as an alternative to the latter, the almost identical pro-ject stream s2 ultra*, to show what technical improvements in mentioned points would offer in terms of SQ.

*) both tested here on Stereophile, thanks!

I have the files of the 2011 remaster in 24/96, but the three download sources I've checked so far only offer 16/44.1. They must have withdrawn the 24/96 download, for reasons unknown. You can stream it in 16/44.1 MQA from Tidal, however; IMHO, that is the best you can do sonically right now.

Maybe Warner has plans... ?????

jason