Quaternione

Very interesting reading, indeed. Now in this Jitter discussion, what about streaming music over the network, e.g. via Apple TV2 (which actuall I am currently testing with). I don't know how the ATV works internally, but assume it has a build in buffer that would store the data sent via the network before sending it to the DAC. Shouldn't that allow for less Jitter compared to USB or SPDIF? Thanks Volkmar

I am at a similar point. Being used to so-called high-end audio gear (read expensive), i have started to look into streaming for the convenience it has. Instead of re-investing tons of Euros into Linn's solution I wanted to start cheap to find out about all this PC stuff. In fact i am currently streaming music from my windows pc via ATV2 to my Mark Levinson CD Player which has a DAC I can connect other stuff to. The result is surprisingly good. Not as good as a CD but close. Now I am wondering where to improve? Where is my money well invested? How important is the soundcard e.g.? Does it make a difference at all inthis setup as the data ist streamed over WiFi? Is the music player important? I guess with ATV I am bound to iTunes anyway. Not too sure how this works. One of these days, when high resolution audio files are more common, I will look into an external 24 Bit capable DAC such as the Musical Fidelity M1. Any suggestions are very much appreciated Volkmar

Thanks a lot, didn't know that. I have to admit I dont understand exactly what is going on at the PC end. Is there further processing done or is the Soundcard involved? ATV seems to be a smart and very low cost way of streaming music to my stereo, instead of e.g. Investing into Linn's devices. However I would like to understabd the weak points of this setup in order to invest whereever it makes sense. ( I have posted a related question in the DAC section, sorry if that was not the appropriate section). Thanks a lot for any advice. Volkmar

When I compared Apple Lossless with AIFF on my iPhone connected via the Wadia 170i transport to my ML DAC, I found subtle differences, even though lossless is lossless of course. When I streamed the same files from my PC via Apple TV, I could not hear differences. Not sure though whether that indicates an improvement or suuggests that the PC ot the Apple TV is flattening all out. I need to do more comparisons with the ML CD Player.

First of all I am very happy I found this Forum. As this is my first post, a brief introduction might be OK: I have been an audiophool for the last 30 years or so. My current gear consists out of a Mark Levinson ML 390S CD player, a ML 320S pre- amplifier icl. Phono stage and a ML 431 amplifier. Inaddition to the CD I use a Linn LP12 turntable with the full setup ;-) (Ekos, Akiva etc...). My speakers are Parsifal Encore from Verity Audio. When I am on the road I am using my iPhone4 with Shure SE530 headphones. Which brings me to my question. As I got via the first Nano to Apple, I bought more and more from them, they have a way to make things easy... And when I connected the iPhone via a Wadia 170i Transport to the build-in DAC in my CD Player, I was more than surprised. So for me the end of CD Players, particularly the high-end expensive ones is there. Looking into alternatives I checked the Dock solutions like Wadia and now I am looking into streaming solutions. In fact I hooked up an Apple TV 2 to my DAC and now I am streaming AIFF files from my windows PC. Using the Remote app with an iPad I don't need to actually connect a TV to the Apple TV. Works great and is very convenient and sounds remarkebly well. But now let's look into the quality. I dont know what processing is being done on the PC and what I can do about it. Is the soundcard already involved? As the Apple TV is connected via Toslink to the DAC, the conversion is done within the ML Player. Sorry for the stupid question. It seems this is similar to what Linn is doing with their streaming devices, only about 50-100 times more expensive ;-) so where is the caveat and where would you guys suggest to invest in order to improve. Sooner or later I would want to get a 24Bit capable DAC like e.g. The Musial Fidelity M1. Thanks for reading and sorry for the lengthy first post. Enjoy your Music! Volkmar