Node 2i and Arch important question!

[ogs]

Hello everyone. My current setup consists of a BlueSound Node2i and 2 Gold's (streaming from Roon to Node and from node via optical to one speaker). I only use Node when I want a deeper bass, as it allows me to adjust bass and treble. Reason for only using node for more bass and only for more bass is that sound quality is considerably lower while streaming through node, rather than streaming directly from Roon to the speakers (don't really know how it works, but i am guessing that if you stream directly from Node via optical, the integrated dac inside the phantoms gets ignored? and rely only on Node's dac? no idea).

My question is...as i didn't find any answer to really convince me. What is Arch actually doing except for the fact that it provides the possibility to connect more streaming products to the speakers? I already ordered one piece of arch, along with a QED Reference Digital Coaxial cable so i can test them out. If i connect the Node to the Arch, and output from Arch to the speakers via ethernet or wifi, will the sound quality be improved because of arch? Or will it have the same quality as if i was streaming directly from node to the speakers via optical? Can i use Arch independent to any streaming product or does it really have to be connected to a streamer (a.i turntable, cd-player, etc etc) in order to work?

Would you guys advice me to keep Arch ? Does it really help? I am not planning on getting any turntable or any other streaming products as i want my setup to be as minimalistic and simple as possible.

I am super confused as to what Arch really does, or what's Arch's purpose except for the multimedia connections.

If anyone can please enlighten me, I would really much appreciate it!!

Arch is an AD converter, but also a digital interface. The AD (line or phono input/RIAA) and digital input section is inherited from Expert amplifiers. As with Expert amplifiers the two RCA sockets can be configured as SPDIF inputs.

I believe audio is transferred to Phantoms using a variant of Devialet's AIR protocol. I base this on Devialet telling me they use UDP to transport audio from Arch. UDP is also used in AIR. And it is a lossless transfer.

AD is done at 24/96, but signals are re-sampled before going to Phantoms. I do not know which sample rate is used on the (AIR) stream that is sent to Phantoms. One can presumably input any sample rate on the SPDIF inputs (44.1 to 192kHz) and Arch will re-sample.

My guess is that a stream from Arch to Phantoms is better than the same signal via the optical input. There are a lot of variables here so it is difficult to know for certain!
One thing is certain though; the DAC in Phantom is always in use. There is no way to bypass it.