Sound Quality difference for SRS in anlog vs streaming unexpectedly huge

woodsman · February 15

So, doing improvements on a pair of SDA SRS. Have / had, 2.3tl, 3.1tl, 10, 11, 11 rt?
I added rear damping foam strips, and recapped the hf section and the 33's, recovered, refinished the wood, resealed the cab corners. Nothing major.
I have been enjoying the ultra hd streaming service, and found that half or most of the files are well done, and there's the selection!
I rotate many pairs of speakers regularly for fun and discovery.
Enter the SRS recently. I feel the caps are broke in and the correct amount of cabinet damping is in, but they just won't sound right. Getting semblance, light reverb, and peaky mids. All from streaming the best quality available. So, I haven't spun vinyl in a couple of years, so let's give that a try. Wow, it was so superior, not a little, night and day. All the stereo imaging is now there, as is the detail. For the last couple of days, I have been starting the same song at the same time on Amazon and my turtable (MC) cartridge fwiw, and A/B-ing constantly, for many hours. My resulta have consistent. Obviously something is getting lost in the signal convertion somewhere concerning the stereo imaging and even detail, or Amazon is not true ultra HD, or a different recording?

Cd's are mostly better than streaming, but vinyl is easily the winner. On the SRS.

Have others had similair experiences or have suggestions.

Thanks.

daddyjt · February 15

What’s your digital source and DAC?

woodsman · February 15

Hi Daddgyit, thanks for joining the conversation. Digital source is Amazon ultra hd / equivalent, auto leveling off and allow external devices set. Signal comes into a desktop with windows 11 then to the dac in an Emotiva preamp pt-100. Rca out to Halo A21.

VR3 · February 15

You will never get a desktop to sound good streaming thru a hifi system

You have to get serious with streaming to find the results

Linear power supplies all modems, routers, all devices. No switching power supplies.

Etheregen switch with an external clock

Ethernet filter and high quality cables

Dedicated streamer and outboard dac

1.5m bnc cable from streamer to dac

Streaming is a game changer for this hobby but alot of people get hung up on "digital is digital" and miss out on a whole other world of possibilities

xschop · February 16

For the most part, Amazon HD delivers consistent fidelity as a daily driver, but have noticed that it is sometimes not as dynamic as a FLAC file burned from CD (Example, SADE's Diamond Life album via Jeff's store.).

The trade off is I can listen to some very rare stuff that you cannot even find on CD.

woodsman · February 16

Suspicion confirmed. A dedicated streamer was my next action. Are there any recommendations for a streamer.

VR3 · February 16

The streamer isn't as important as the power supply.

I run a minidsp sdh studio with a tone audio power supply and cables. It sounds every bit as good as the 7k lumin x1

VR3 · February 16

Forgot to mention I had mine altered to have bnc outputs and some rubber feet, bnc is the only way for digital

billbillw · February 16

I'll provide the opinion that you can get seriously good streaming results without all the extra stuff that Trey mentioned.
Sure you can make improvements with each step, but to start, you just need a good clean running streamer that has enough processing power to run at a low CPU load and outputs a bit perfect audio stream (ie: not manipulated by the software/OS) connected to a good quality DAC using a good CD or high res streaming service, or from local ripped files. I'd challenge my Daphile thin client setup against many of the under $1500 priced dedicated streamers.
Windows PCs have many issues that affect the streaming output. Some of those can be overcome, but I'm of the opinion that it is better to use a Linux or Pi based OS from the start on your streamer.

xschop · February 16

^^^Agreed. Linux Mint here with Strawberry Player on a dedicated Ryzen 8745HS mini PC.^^^

Toolfan66 · February 16

I do CD/SACD/DVD-A/BluRay Audio, Stream from Qobuz, and also do Vinyl.

I am honestly happy with all of it, Vinyl is my favorite if I was to pick one. It all just depends on what I want to play with at that moment, and if I am going to sit and listen, or have the system playing in the background.

For me it all depends on the quality/production of the music that I may want to hear, not necessarily the format that I am playing..

woodsman · February 16

as i research these great ideas, its amazing all of the options.

My roadblock is my vision so I can interface with the music menu on a 60" tv being used as a monitor. And, upon closer inspection of my wired scheming, I have things routed as such.
1. Wi-Fi external receiver at computer, LAN cable not practical due to distance.
2. HDMI out of computer to TV.
3. Toslink out of computer to Preamp. My understanding is that this will be DAC free from the tv at least but has probably been converted in the pc.
4. a 3" lcd screen on the streamer is simply a no-go for me, i need the monitor. And i like using a keyboard for searching and scrolling, my carpal tunnel is too severe to use small devices that require fine motor skills - even a smart phone keyboard is a severe challenge.

So, how do i use Amazon / Tidal directly to the preamp dac, and have visual interface on my 60" monitor with keyboard and mouse input / navigation? Online searches did little for me, I cant be the only beat-up old audiophile out there!

woodsman · February 16

correction; Toslink optical out of tv to preamp

billbillw · February 16

Some ideas would be to use a headless streamer that has an interface that you can see on a web-browser. I use a 10" tablet with mine, but sounds like you have a PC setup already, which I would assume means you have a keyboard/mouse to operate that. It would look similar to you, but you would be accessing the remote web interface of the streamer instead of actually putting the stream through the PC. The idea would be to have the streamer have it's own direct connection to the DAC, either through USB or Dig Coax. Toslink would work OK, but the other connections are preferable. Putting any audio through a TV is going to affect the purity of a 2-channel music source.

woodsman · February 16

FWIW, it appears that I do have a non converted signal going to my Preamp (according to Ai), perhaps not the quality of a dedicated USB streamer that I will research more. My computer dose show the Emotiva as the intended destination.

AI Synopsis: For those like me needing to understand.
To send an audio signal from Windows 11 without using the computers onboard dac, you must output the audio in a digital format to an external device that will then perform the conversion.

1. Choose a Digital Output Method
You can bypass the internal sound card by using one of these three digital connections:
USB: Connect a USB DAC or audio interface directly to a USB port. This is the most common method as it bypasses almost all internal audio processing.
Optical (S/PDIF) / Coaxial: If your motherboard or sound card has a dedicated Toslink/Optical port, use it to send a digital bitstream to a receiver or DAC.
HDMI: Connect your PC to an AV receiver or monitor with speakers. HDMI carries digital audio data directly to the external hardware for decoding.

jdjohn · 12:28AM

A streamer connected to your local network will have a local IP address, which you can connect to via your browser, using your TV as a computer monitor. The musical data goes directly to the streamer, but you can view and control the streamer interface through the browser.

But, the streamer will need a direct interface with Amazon HD Music, which might be an issue.

Sound Quality difference for SRS in anlog vs streaming unexpectedly huge

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