[Tobias]

I love the live broadcast. Exciting 🙂

[Tobias]

Wijnand, being subject matter expert has proven to be the worst you can be, in audio! I fully agree with your thoughts! In general, the worst type of advice is actually coming from the people who claim “I have been an bla bla bla, for ages and…”. You need to have experience with audio, that is what this is about. 🙂 So i am very open to that i could be very wrong! 🙂

[Tobias]

It is also extremely important to not physically hook up stuff to your streamer or DAC, like any type of computer or TV or other devices! That will ruin the noise floor potential of the streamer or DAC totally and nullify all your achievements in PS and clean ethernet connection.

[Tobias]

The streamer only need to have a low internal noise floor. It makes sense what Alpha Audio is reporting that simple streamers, without extra gadgets like wifi and bluetoth, like the Volumio Rivo and Primare NP5 (for example) can make you DAC perform great when fed with a silent power.

I agree that quality PS is very important but we should also have as few power supplies as possible, if it can be avoided. The trend has often been to add switches and stuff with great power, instead of trying to find ways of making them not needed.

[Tobias]

Wow, it is great for the community to have people like you that actually take time to test and verify different solutions and combinations and share the result. Much appreciated!

[Tobias]

What i can say though is that i know a lot about digital and networking. So i can at least understand what it can´t be, from a digital/networking perspective, which i believe helps me sort away things that can´t influence the sound. But there is always this nagging feeling that there is some aspects that you have overlooked since my knowledge isn´t directly tied to audio of course…

[Tobias]

BTW, i am very happy to hear that you are a DIY guy. I wish i was as well but for me even soldering a cable feels like a giant leap, but i am fighting my demons and have at least done that now 🙂

[Tobias]

Hehe, I can imagine the frustration if it actually turns out to be as simple as they are concluding on the German site, when you have worked with something so long.

I am not saying that it is this simple, for sure, and i also haven´t tested much other things my self, to be honest, so i can´t judge the greatness of this compared to other solutions. However, i have to say, just based on following those German guys for a couple of months now, i really think they have been taken a very credible systematic approach (very German, in fact 🙂 )that has lead me to think that they really have nailed it 🙂

[Tobias]

found this picture also. What is actually inside the Networks Accoustics Muon Pro? Well, it looks to be the ferrit core chokes…

[Tobias]

Pieter, do you have one certain volume position that you use? I ask since my experience is that when the noise is removed the sound gets less shouty, which is perceived as less energetic.

But you can now turn up the volume instead, a lot, without it getting loud and fatiguing. Thanks to this you suddenly have better dynamics, since you can crank the volume more without it appearing to be loud. It basically starts sounds more like vinyl and not like digital music.

That is my view, and i feel that it is a paradox that is easy to miss if you focus on a certain “fixed” volume level.

[Tobias]

Maybe fibre could be used similarly to a WiFi extender but fibre definitely isn´t as effective as airgapping since you can hear changes in the network even prior to the fibre, even if many say that shouldn´t be possible…

[Tobias]

Yes, fibre is not ideal since the signal needs to be the type of signal that the DAC handles. It means that it needs to be converted from fibre to “ethernet” signal, inside or close to the streamer, which causes noise, which is what needs to be avoided, at all cost.

Amazing to hear that you are happy with the ferrit core throttle!

[Tobias]

Better DAC clocks makes a lot of sense. Additional clocking in switches and streamers make no sense, from a clocking perspective. They might help lower the noise floor towards the DAC though, as a biproduct.

Power supplies are needed yes. But in a WiFi extender situation, you only need one power supply, in the network path.

In a non WiFi situation you have a multitude of electronics and power supplies interconnected that needs to be cleaned up prior to the DAC.

[Tobias]

In addition, since the solution is actually fairly simple (i believe), in theory, it has been in the audio industries interest to try to complicate it. Not always by purpose maybe… But I see that people associated with the audio industry is actually joining the forums and try to shot down any of the simplified theories since they have an interest in selling ethernet related gear and power supplies.

[Tobias]

Pieter, I agree on the effects of ethernet noise filtering, as you describe it. Even better than the best power supplies are: No power supplies! (or additional electronics in the path way) 🙂

It makes perfect sense to me also that additional clocking, prior to the DAC, has been a topic for many years since the improvements when cleaning up noise is more inline what you would expect from “better clocking”, since the actual DAC clock will work better when cleaning up the noise. (words you used: Relaxed, less stress, agreeable)

The additional clocking is not actually doing anything at all, in form of clocking since the data is buffered in the DAC anyway and Jitter don´t travel on the network. The clocking just needs to be perfectly executed in the DAC, that´s all. For that to happen there can´t be any noise degrading that DAC clock. The additional clocking can however impact the the noise level positively, as a side affect. (Again, my own thoughts/conclusions)

Now, this was a side track, but to me this shows how it is possible that digital noise has always been the main problem and “simple” filtering and “airgapping” (WiFi extenders/4G receivers) is actually the best solution, not adding additional electronics/power supplies, which always comes with some level of noise in themselves. (my own theories again :-))

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