Uniti core versus NAS

The functionality of the Core upnp software is far less than that of Asset. If it were me I'd spend the money on SL din to XLR interconnects, or keep it in the bank. 

I can't comment on SQ as I haven't heard - and for me A question In which I am interested is the sound quality from the COre's rendered output (via SPDIF) compared to NDX or Melco, to determine whether it is a viable contender. 

I very much like having a combined music store and renderer, completely removing the vagaries of network in playing music, short direct signal path, and with no need to consider the effect on SQ of switches and their power supplies, cabling etc.

I had an opportunity to listen and compare the following recently:

Core -> NDS

upnp -> NDS

The music when routed from the core (via BNC) has better clarity and depth. The logical resoning is that this path bypass the streamer board and goes direct into the DAC of the NAS.

It is the network circuitry (within the streamer board) and data transfer from it (or conversion say from FLAC to WAV) to the DAC that screws up the music.  

engjoo posted:

I had an opportunity to listen and compare the following recently:

Core -> NDS

upnp -> NDS

The music when routed from the core (via BNC) has better clarity and depth. The logical resoning is that this path bypass the streamer board and goes direct into the DAC of the NAS. (NDS?)

It is the network circuitry (within the streamer board) and data transfer from it (or conversion say from FLAC to WAV) to the DAC that screws up the music.  

Can you expand on your last paragraph, Engjoo. I had understood that however the audio data arrives at the streamer's DAC it is first processed by the streamer's SHARC processor from WAV or FLAC or DSD to LPCM so I'm unclear whether you're saying that there is some additional conversion or processing of the audio data going on in the network board which "screws up the music."

sjbabbey posted:

engjoo posted:

I had an opportunity to listen and compare the following recently:

Core -> NDS

upnp -> NDS

The music when routed from the core (via BNC) has better clarity and depth. The logical resoning is that this path bypass the streamer board and goes direct into the DAC of the NAS. (NDS?)

It is the network circuitry (within the streamer board) and data transfer from it (or conversion say from FLAC to WAV) to the DAC that screws up the music.  

Can you expand on your last paragraph, Engjoo. I had understood that however the audio data arrives at the streamer's DAC it is first processed by the streamer's SHARC processor from WAV or FLAC or DSD to LPCM so I'm unclear whether you're saying that there is some additional conversion or processing of the audio data going on in the network board which "screws up the music."

If you refer to the NDX white paper, there is a "Streamer Module" and this is this module that is the weakest link in the streamer (it can be any streamer) as it adds noise to the box.

By usinge the core, you bypass this module.

Thanks Engjoo. I see that you are referring to the process of unpacking and buffering of the TCP stream data which occurs in the Streamer module/buffer and the potential for this to introduce noise rather than any file format conversion.

It's entirely possible to fudge this test and make it sound worse either way round according to what you intend to prove.

In my case I use a 272 powered by a 555 and with careful set-up of the network it sounds as good playing from UPnP as it does from a USB flash drive; and both sound better than the S/Pdif inputs.

With the S/Pdif inputs more care needs to be taken to avoid introduction of jitter (less buffering) and RFI (unbalanced as opposed to Ethernet which is balanced).

It's just not as simple as "...because there's noise introduced by the streaming module".

sjbabbey posted:

Thanks Engjoo. I see that you are referring to the process of unpacking and buffering of the TCP stream data which occurs in the Streamer module/buffer and the potential for this to introduce noise rather than any file format conversion.

Yes. That’s my hypothesis.

Huge posted:

It's entirely possible to fudge this test and make it sound worse either way round according to what you intend to prove.

In my case I use a 272 powered by a 555 and with careful set-up of the network it sounds as good playing from UPnP as it does from a USB flash drive; and both sound better than the S/Pdif inputs.

With the S/Pdif inputs more care needs to be taken to avoid introduction of jitter (less buffering) and RFI (unbalanced as opposed to Ethernet which is balanced).

It's just not as simple as "...because there's noise introduced by the streaming module".

Certainly. There are many variables here and it may differ from streamer to streamer.