About 5 years ago I started setting up and optimising a system specifically for local and remote streaming. I finished the complete optimisation in February ‘23, 4 weeks prior to entirely losing hearing in one ear, which resulted in my tearing the whole system apart and starting to sell all the components. But before it disappears entirely I wanted to share some of the logic I followed. Why? Because it resulted in the finest and most exciting musical presentation I have ever heard in over 50 years of chasing the hi-fi dream, including some genuinely top end vinyl, massive horn loudspeakers and all-tube amplification and CD replay.
While building my system I developed a logic for the network, which I tested multiple times and found entirely robust, with each improvement providing genuinely unexpected results that delivered hugely increased realism and more important, bags more of the emotion and musical involvement that we audiophiles crave. When I explain what I did, I hope you’ll see the inherent simplicity and logic that explains why certain things are true and give the results they do. This is a long story, so It’ll probably take a few posts and some reading stamina on your part. but I believe that if you are indeed chasing the audio dream it will be worth while reading. Just to mention at this juncture, I’m not on some sort of ego trip, rather this is part of my healing from a profound loss. I’ve lost my hearing, I don’t want everything I learned to be part of that. In losing my hearing I genuinely lost the keys to paradise. It would be a shame if they disappeared without a trace
Part of an audiophiles’ life is ‘upgrading’ and that is usually driven by the desire to get greater access to the intense emotions and feelings that music can generate. Music has the ability to stimulate our subconscious pleasure centres and the better the sound quality gets, the bigger and more intense those emotions And feelings become. Humans are pleasure seeking animals, often to the detriment of the organism (drugs, alcohol, overeating etc). Those pleasures are very addictive…the greater the pleasure, the stronger the addiction. When the finest music is presented in all its glory, it has no less power to create addiction. That is what this is about…..making music that is utterly addictive.
So let’s get into it by establishing a foundation. I would like to start by making a controversial statement. If you goal is to achieve the finest sound quality, a perfectly functioning, fault-free network is not enough.
Networking was developed by various standards committees to move data quickly, cheaply, reliably and seamlessly between devices. During that development, not a single thought was given to the resulting audio quality that may result. It was and still is assumed by the majority that all one needs in digital is bit perfect transmission of data but that simply isn’t true. A few top companies like Innuos and Taiko have discovered this untruth and set out to remedy the situation, with often spectacular results. I am not a network expert (although I was closely involved in the networking standards evolution) and most of what I have learned has some from observation and the generosity of people who are indeed experts in the fields of both network AND Audio.
So, the logic!
Let’s say that I have a simple network of ISP provided modem/wireless router, a Wi-fi -ethernet bridge, maybe a switch, a server or streamer and finally into a DAC. And let’s say that I decide to improve on that really crappy ISP device by adding a better power supply instead of the cheap-as-chips wall wart SMPS that the ISP provides. What happens when I do that? Well if the new PS is indeed superior, I hear an uptick in sound quality. Nothing revolutionary there, BUT such an improvement has a profound implication. In order to hear that improvement, it has to pass through my entire network, so first, the output from the ISP device has to have been improved, which means that the input to the wifi-ethernet bridge has improved, which means its output has improved and so on. The improvement ripples through the network in a better in = better out basis. Just like the rest of hi-fi where a better input results in a better output, an axiom I have never seen disproven. For an improvement early on in the network to be heard in the music, that initial improvement must pass through the entire network, and the only way it can do that logically is better in = better out. Some may claim that they can’t hear a better power supply, and I’ll get to that, so bear with me into part 2 (I warned you this will be long)
While building my system I developed a logic for the network, which I tested multiple times and found entirely robust, with each improvement providing genuinely unexpected results that delivered hugely increased realism and more important, bags more of the emotion and musical involvement that we audiophiles crave. When I explain what I did, I hope you’ll see the inherent simplicity and logic that explains why certain things are true and give the results they do. This is a long story, so It’ll probably take a few posts and some reading stamina on your part. but I believe that if you are indeed chasing the audio dream it will be worth while reading. Just to mention at this juncture, I’m not on some sort of ego trip, rather this is part of my healing from a profound loss. I’ve lost my hearing, I don’t want everything I learned to be part of that. In losing my hearing I genuinely lost the keys to paradise. It would be a shame if they disappeared without a trace
Part of an audiophiles’ life is ‘upgrading’ and that is usually driven by the desire to get greater access to the intense emotions and feelings that music can generate. Music has the ability to stimulate our subconscious pleasure centres and the better the sound quality gets, the bigger and more intense those emotions And feelings become. Humans are pleasure seeking animals, often to the detriment of the organism (drugs, alcohol, overeating etc). Those pleasures are very addictive…the greater the pleasure, the stronger the addiction. When the finest music is presented in all its glory, it has no less power to create addiction. That is what this is about…..making music that is utterly addictive.
So let’s get into it by establishing a foundation. I would like to start by making a controversial statement. If you goal is to achieve the finest sound quality, a perfectly functioning, fault-free network is not enough.
Networking was developed by various standards committees to move data quickly, cheaply, reliably and seamlessly between devices. During that development, not a single thought was given to the resulting audio quality that may result. It was and still is assumed by the majority that all one needs in digital is bit perfect transmission of data but that simply isn’t true. A few top companies like Innuos and Taiko have discovered this untruth and set out to remedy the situation, with often spectacular results. I am not a network expert (although I was closely involved in the networking standards evolution) and most of what I have learned has some from observation and the generosity of people who are indeed experts in the fields of both network AND Audio.
So, the logic!
Let’s say that I have a simple network of ISP provided modem/wireless router, a Wi-fi -ethernet bridge, maybe a switch, a server or streamer and finally into a DAC. And let’s say that I decide to improve on that really crappy ISP device by adding a better power supply instead of the cheap-as-chips wall wart SMPS that the ISP provides. What happens when I do that? Well if the new PS is indeed superior, I hear an uptick in sound quality. Nothing revolutionary there, BUT such an improvement has a profound implication. In order to hear that improvement, it has to pass through my entire network, so first, the output from the ISP device has to have been improved, which means that the input to the wifi-ethernet bridge has improved, which means its output has improved and so on. The improvement ripples through the network in a better in = better out basis. Just like the rest of hi-fi where a better input results in a better output, an axiom I have never seen disproven. For an improvement early on in the network to be heard in the music, that initial improvement must pass through the entire network, and the only way it can do that logically is better in = better out. Some may claim that they can’t hear a better power supply, and I’ll get to that, so bear with me into part 2 (I warned you this will be long)