WE ASKED HI-FI ENGINEERS WHAT MAKES A MUSIC STREAMER SOUND GREAT AND IT'S ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN JUST CHIPSETS

Hi-fi industry experts talk software, power supplies, master clocks and more with What Hi-Fi? UK's managing editor Becky Roberts

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There's a common misconception that music streamers are simply about the qualities of their digital chipsets alone. That is, the computer-like streaming module that pulls digital music data from the cloud (from Tidal's server, say) and packages it into a smooth constant data stream, and the digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) that then turns that data stream into an analogue waveform the rest of your hi-fi system can understand.

It somewhat stems from the broader fallacy that digital audio’s inherent ‘ones and zeros’ makeup means there can be limited differentiation in their delivery.

But, as eloquently illustrated by Matt Dore, CTO of Cambridge Audio, such chips are comparable to how an orchestra performs: “If the conductor isn't very good, the orchestra won't perform as well as it can. And if a good conductor is surrounded by poor musicians or the wrong instruments, the performance, again, won't be as good as it could be.”

Indeed, while chipsets do matter, and it is true that all streamers perform one stage of the process with parity (which we'll get to), their audio performance is predominantly down to how the chips are implemented. As Paul Neville from Harman International told us, “Engineering a high-quality music streamer requires a holistic approach to the signal path, from the network input to the analogue output.”

Chips do matter

The streaming module is a crucial music-streamer component. It communicates with the source to get your music before packaging it up in a digital language the DAC chip can understand. Up until this point, the digital audio data is more or less handled as it would be had it come from a CD transport.