Internal DAC

[mkalthoum]

Hello,

I dont know if the title is correct, but here is an observation I noticed in my system, but I dont know if its related to bitrates or DAC, so bear with me please as I explain my setup below.

AMP: Expert Pro 220 Core upgraded
Player: DIY streamer Raspberry PI + Audiophonics V3 Sabre TCXO (ES9023 DAC) running Volumio distro
Server: Synology NAS, storing the music library, running Minimserver, and BubbleUPNP Server as Open Home render
Control Point: Lumin app.
Connection: Player > RCA > LINE IN on Devialet

I created multiple play setups, both for Devialet Air, and Open Home Renderers


Renderer 1 (R1): ExpertPro, which plays over UPNP, Source UPNP
Renderer 2 (R2): Volumio, which plays over UPNP, Source LINE

Also I play using Devialet Air, Source AIR

Now, here is my observation with those different playing setups

I was playing Draw your Swords by Angus Stone from Tidal and their was no down sampling involved as per my knowledge as reported by the application and it was playing on 16bit.

On R1: the soundstage was worst
On Air: the soundstage got better
On R2: the soundstage blew my mind, it was very wide and spacious.

Question is how come I am getting different results as I was under the impression that analog conversion is part of the ADH process?

Appreciate your comments

[ogs]

So...
R1 is UPnP directly to your 220 via nework?
R2 is analog out of the Pi/Audionics to the 220 line input?
Air is TIDAL's desktop (web) player to Devialet's AIR interface on your Win or Mac?
Ethernet or WiFi?

Welcome to DC by the way!

[Confused]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

If I am reading your post correctly, it would seam that you are indeed feeding your Devialet in fundamentally different ways, and so a subjective difference in performance is no surprise.

When using the Raspberry PI + Audiophonics V3 Sabre, you are basically taking an Ethernet stream, converting this into analogue using the Audiophonics, you are then sending the analogue signal to the Devialet via RCA. The Devialet will take the analogue feed and convert this into PCM digital, which it will then utilise in the ADH core, reconvert to analogue / amplify and feed your speakers. So in simple terms, via this method you are performing the digital to analogue conversion twice, once in the Audiophonics, then again in the Devialet.

From a technical perspective, performing the digital to analogue conversion twice is not a good idea. What is interesting is that you seam to prefer the soundstage via this method. To be honest, this does not surprise me too much, the soundstage is an illusion and sometimes messing things up a little in the digital domain (or even the analogue domain) can nominally give an impression of a richer soundstage. So this begs the question, other than the soundstage effect, what else sounds different?

Why not try a couple of other experiments? With some appropriately selected music, try your method R2 and compare to AIR, listen out for accuracy and realism in the bass, then listen out for those small details, ambient sounds in the room, this kind of thing. Which do you prefer? Any observations?

As for the differences between AIR and UpNP, they are slightly different protocols, so although the digital to analogue conversion will be the same, there may be some fractional differences in timing, jitter and so on, that will give a very fractional difference in presentation.

[mkalthoum]

So...
R1 is UPnP directly to your 220 via nework? YES
R2 is analog out of the Pi/Audionics to the 220 line input? YES
Air is TIDAL's desktop (web) player to Devialet's AIR interface on your Win or Mac? Mac with both Wireless & Over LAN.
Ethernet or WiFi?

Welcome to DC by the way!

[David A]

…
Air is TIDAL's desktop (web) player to Devialet's AIR interface on your Win or Mac? Mac with both Wireless & Over LAN.
Ethernet or WiFi?
…

You say your Mac is connected to your network over both wireless and LAN. LAN is your network, the acronym means "Local Area Network". You can connect to your LAN via wifi or via ethernet. What counts in this case is how you connect your Devialet to the network and you can connect it via wifi, via ethernet or you can connect via both. If you connect by both you have to choose which connection is being used and you do that when you choose the input. You do that by selecting the wifi or ethernet output. The Devialet will actually be union only one of those inputs at any time and it's the input which is being used which is important.

The question really is which input on your Devialet is active when you use AIR, the wifi input or the ethernet input? That can make a difference depending on the quality of the wifi connection. A wired connection (ethernet) is usually considered superior to wifi.

Things can get complicated, however. I used to use ethernet from my Mac to my router, then wifi from the router to a wifi satellite unit near my Devialet, and then ethernet from the satellite unit to the Devialet so I used the ethernet input on the Devialet but in essence I was relying on the wifi connection from router to satellite unit. I had to go that way because I could not get a reliable wifi connection between my router and the Devialet and the satellite unit gave a far superior wifi connection than the Devialet could achieve. Getting a wired connection installed from the router all the way to the Devialet made a noticeable improvement because I no longer had to rely on wifi anywhere in the signal path.

I don't know how the signal is travelling over your network between your router and the Devialet but every step in that signal path is important. Even if you're using the Devialet's ethernet input as I was when I was connecting the Devialet to the satellite unit, your connection quality is going to be limited by the quality of any wifi section of the signal path because the quality of the wifi signal is affected by distance and intervening walls and floors the signal has to pass through along the way. Wired connections are far less affected by distance and aren't affected by walls and floors.