[Tobias]

I actually had one of my all time favorite listening sessions this night. I have had my first cable choke for a while now (not optimized, just my first try without really knowing what i did…) but as you say Wijnand there is something so incredible pure about this. It really is like the DAC is now working as it is suppose to work. Pure joy with the music!

[Tobias]

Not sure if you saw it but here is Eric´s favorite choke cable right now and it should be the last step into the streamer:

2m SLIM SL6A + 1 x Würth 74271111 + KEMET ESD-R-613325H-NC23 (8-fold winding) + 4 x Würth 74271222S (3-fold winding)

[Tobias]

As they say, it is really remarkable that this is not known broadly, in an ethernet context, when you think about how simple it is.

That ferrit core ring is amazingly efficient when paired with a non shielded ethernet cable, it seems.

I have no insight in the Muon at all but it makes sense to me that passive filtering should be used the last bit into the streamer, when you realize how incredible sensitive the DAC is for this noise. Any electronics or power supplies will result in noise, regardless of how expensive they are.

[Tobias]

That sounds amazing. Thanks for the pictures also.

I notice that you have your ethernet cables “naked” now, prior to the ferrit core and after. They guys on the German forum seem to suggest that the cable should be a short length and covered with ferrit clamps before and after the core.

Is it because they have a WiFi extender close to the choke cable you think? Are they trying to cover the cable from that WiFi radiation or something?

[Tobias]

Wow, you are the man!

[Tobias]

I can almost promise you that LESS IS MORE in the digital domain. It is all about obsessing about noise and every unnecessary electronic component is better left out. I do understand that WiFi is a no-no for you but i really think that the alternative is that you always is going to have unnecessary heavy computing in your connected signal path, which is not ideal and very hard to completely clean up and stabilize.

[Tobias]

I read about the Pink Foun now to understand. Those are the type of streamers that you can´t influence very much because they have too much going on in them selves, in my opinion. It is like a computer with a lot of gadgets to achieve a low noise floor with a lot of unnecessary trickery, in my opinion.

They have a certain noise floor, that is actually quite high, but then they solve that the last bit into the DAC step. That last step you can´t really influence much since it has its “fixed” lowest noise floor, which is higher than what you aim for.

If you instead use a much simpler streamer, that doesn´t do a lot of trickery in itself but just has great silent components. Then I believe such a streamer has even higher potential to take care of an amazingly low incoming noise floor and forward it on to the DAC.

[Tobias]

My thinking is now that you might have an amazingly low noise floor since it sounds awesome. The trouble is that a PC is not a stable environment and its noise floor will fluctuate and therefor you get this issues when you have such a low noise floor to protect.

[Tobias]

Ideally you should also use the computer on WiFi, when using Roon, to remote control the streamer. Again, to keep the noise floor low in the streamer and not being influenced by a connected computer in the signal path.

[Tobias]

Yes, but roon is fairly process heavy since it sends more metadata. Many streamers sound worse with roon then their native qobuz interface because roon makes the CPU in the streamer work just a little bit harder.

These differences is mostly heard when you have a very low noise floor in your streamer.

Grimm audio is roon only, and amazing, but they have obsessed in making sure that the CPU noise does not impact the DAC clock.

[Tobias]

My advice is still to remove the PC from the equation and only make sure that your audio streamer (remote controlled)  is fed with the cleanest power and ethernet signal possible into the DAC. That is all that matters in my mind.

I can see all sorts issues trying to handle a fluctuation in noise floor from an involved PC when we are at this crazy level of noise reduction. 🙂

[Tobias]

In my own amateur mind you shouldn´t have a PC connected in any way to anything related to your HiFi equipment. I know that you can do a lot of optimization and run software like audirvana and stuff… But i don´t think that will ever touch a good audio streamer, remote controlled from a mobile device, with really good attention to noise floor. The noise floor potential of an audio streamer is rather crazy and the moment you hook something up to it, you are just worsen its potential to send a clean signal to the DAC. A cd player don´t have the same potential since there are moving mechanical parts involved, which is not the case if you use a good WiFi extender, to a streamer (both with great power), for exampel.

[Tobias]

Hmm, are you saying that it even gets dark if ONLY the CD player is physically connected to the DAC?

[Tobias]

Or from your PC streamer, which maybe makes more sense?

This still wouldn´t make the sound dark, in my mind, but i have been surprised before… 🙂

[Tobias]

Wait, could it be that your DAC starts some sort of action internally for temperature control or similar. Something that under “normal” circumstances wouldn´t really be noticed. But since you have suppressed the noise floor more than what they have even tested it in, probably 🙂 , the sudden raised noise floor by this (whatever it is doing) is actually noticeable in your application.  Just thinking out loud…

[Auteur]

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