Is AIR getting better in the Pro era? Thoughts of little steps.....

[ogs]

Hi, I concur your observation as I did the same test on my system. 

My sms-200 / mutec mc-3 USB through FMC to switch still sounds slightly better to me, but the Devialet Ethernet to my switch is just cheap computer LAN cable, without FMC. 

As the 220 Pro Ethernet port does not accept gigabit connection, where my FMC box only support Gb, can't connect at 100 Mb. So there is still room for improvement.

Btw, I've one more point for the SQ improvement, is I wonder the internal up sampling to 24/192 through Air may be done differently.  Will it be done by FPGA, and other input is done by the BB SRC chips?

Good observation re.: up sampling! To begin with I used Roon's up sampling as this sounds best with the mR/Mutec. With RoonAIR it sounds better when up sampling is performed in the Devialet so for the last two days I've sent tracks with native resolution. Whether all up sampling is done in the BB SRC I do not know. The MAT (DSD to PCM) conversion is done somewhere in the DSP (I think) so it is possible that the stream from AIR is handled here too.
I have not had time to do a new comparison of mR/Mutec vs RoonAIR yet, but your observation matches mine so far.