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As with everything we cannot deal in absolutes. Whilst I in no way want to defend ripof garbage like the linked product you should consider Ethernet for live st

by ZiiS 4y ago

As with everything we cannot deal in absolutes. Whilst I in no way want to defend ripof garbage like the linked product you should consider Ethernet for live streaming. TCP correction can very much be audible and UDP is often used.

rhinoceraptor 4y ago
If your ethernet switch needs snake oil on your home network to sound good, I have bad news about your ISP, your cable modem, your ISP's transit provider, and your audio streaming app's data center connection.
- ZiiS 4y ago
  I am not talking about snake oil. I am saying _LOTS_ of (most?) networks are installed with AliExpress wall sockets etc. and tested by loading google.com once. If you want trouble free audio streaming it is worth checking the network.
  - aforwardslash 4y ago
    That actually sounds a lot like snake oil. Electrical noise from outlets is irrelevant for digital package relay. Your big ass tv switches 100x more data each frame flawlessly, identifying way more channels than traditional 2-way signaling; when was the last time you heard someone saying "I bought a true filter for my wall socket and my led tv gives me better colors"? Is that level of stupid we're talking about.
speedgoose 4y ago
How can it be audible on TCP when TLS doesn’t break on the same network equipment? Or when you can read documents without typos or parsing errors. UDP is another story and it’s normal to hear things.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ZiiS 4y ago
  If the correct data only comes in too late after you were meant to hear it.
  - awill 4y ago
    But that is a correctness issue (to the end user), not a quality issue. Wouldn't that cause lag/pauses, or other errors when playing in real time?
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    TCP preserves the order.
    - barrkel 4y ago
      By retransmitting. Packet loss causes stalls and if there's insufficient buffering, that's an audio glitch. A patch cable or its connectors would need to be in a dreadful state to get packet loss though, i.e. physically damaged or defective.
      - brokenmachine 4y ago
        Back of napkin estimates: For lossless CD-quality audio you need about 160kbyte/s. So on a gigabit network (125Mbyte/s), you'd need over 99.999% packet loss in order to not keep up. So they're comparing to an almost completely faulty cable. I feel like a lot of audiophile stupidity is not understanding scale. There is a difference between the fancy speaker cables and acceptable cheap ones, but it's so ridiculously minuscule as to be completely inaudible compared to, say, whether or not the listener is wearing socks or not. And that's not an exaggeration, that difference will literally be more than the difference in cables, probably by an order of magnitude. The only real difference between the cables will be at frequencies over, say, a GHz. ie RF frequencies 50x higher than cats might be able to hear. But the audiofool will say, "see, there's a difference - I want my system to sound the best". And they focus so much on ridiculously overkill cables, amplifiers and stupid stands, yet seem to often ignore room treatment which could really make a difference. It's often massive speakers in horribly reflective minimalistic rooms, driven by amps running at 0.1% of their power rating. Another thing is not understanding tradeoffs. Everything is a compromise, so when you buy the amp that's rated at 2000W but only run it at 2W, it won't measure as well as the same quality amp that's rated at 50W, also running at 2W. Similarly a speaker with a max rating of 500W running at 2W won't be as accurate as a speaker with a max rating of 50W running at 2W, because physically the material the speaker is made out of has to be more resilient/less flexible to handle that kind of maximum power. But they focus on one particular thing (usually the expensive thing) to the detriment of other things. Also not understanding wattage. Because sound is logarithmic, it is really eye-opening how little power you need for quite loud audio. Most systems you wouldn't want to listen to at over 5W. Eg for, say two Kef R7 speakers which have a sensitivity of 88dB, at only 5W, from 3m away is 94.4dB. That is LOUD. At 2W, it's 90.5dB. Also LOUD. https://mehlau.net/audio/spl/ https://mehlau.net/audio/spl/ (+6dB for two speakers) You don't need a 5000W amp. But they don't understand any of this so they just think higher number and more expensive equals better. It's like buying a Mack truck because you heard it carries more than a hatchback when you're going to the supermarket, and thinking it must be better because it's more expensive.

by ZiiS 4y ago

rhinoceraptor 4y ago

If your ethernet switch needs snake oil on your home network to sound good, I have bad news about your ISP, your cable modem, your ISP's transit provider, and your audio streaming app's data center connection.

ZiiS 4y ago
I am not talking about snake oil. I am saying _LOTS_ of (most?) networks are installed with AliExpress wall sockets etc. and tested by loading google.com once. If you want trouble free audio streaming it is worth checking the network.
- aforwardslash 4y ago
  That actually sounds a lot like snake oil. Electrical noise from outlets is irrelevant for digital package relay. Your big ass tv switches 100x more data each frame flawlessly, identifying way more channels than traditional 2-way signaling; when was the last time you heard someone saying "I bought a true filter for my wall socket and my led tv gives me better colors"? Is that level of stupid we're talking about.

speedgoose 4y ago

How can it be audible on TCP when TLS doesn’t break on the same network equipment? Or when you can read documents without typos or parsing errors. UDP is another story and it’s normal to hear things.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ZiiS 4y ago
If the correct data only comes in too late after you were meant to hear it.
- awill 4y ago
  But that is a correctness issue (to the end user), not a quality issue. Wouldn't that cause lag/pauses, or other errors when playing in real time?
- speedgoose 4y ago
  TCP preserves the order.
  - barrkel 4y ago
    By retransmitting. Packet loss causes stalls and if there's insufficient buffering, that's an audio glitch. A patch cable or its connectors would need to be in a dreadful state to get packet loss though, i.e. physically damaged or defective.
    - brokenmachine 4y ago
      Back of napkin estimates: For lossless CD-quality audio you need about 160kbyte/s. So on a gigabit network (125Mbyte/s), you'd need over 99.999% packet loss in order to not keep up. So they're comparing to an almost completely faulty cable. I feel like a lot of audiophile stupidity is not understanding scale. There is a difference between the fancy speaker cables and acceptable cheap ones, but it's so ridiculously minuscule as to be completely inaudible compared to, say, whether or not the listener is wearing socks or not. And that's not an exaggeration, that difference will literally be more than the difference in cables, probably by an order of magnitude. The only real difference between the cables will be at frequencies over, say, a GHz. ie RF frequencies 50x higher than cats might be able to hear. But the audiofool will say, "see, there's a difference - I want my system to sound the best". And they focus so much on ridiculously overkill cables, amplifiers and stupid stands, yet seem to often ignore room treatment which could really make a difference. It's often massive speakers in horribly reflective minimalistic rooms, driven by amps running at 0.1% of their power rating. Another thing is not understanding tradeoffs. Everything is a compromise, so when you buy the amp that's rated at 2000W but only run it at 2W, it won't measure as well as the same quality amp that's rated at 50W, also running at 2W. Similarly a speaker with a max rating of 500W running at 2W won't be as accurate as a speaker with a max rating of 50W running at 2W, because physically the material the speaker is made out of has to be more resilient/less flexible to handle that kind of maximum power. But they focus on one particular thing (usually the expensive thing) to the detriment of other things. Also not understanding wattage. Because sound is logarithmic, it is really eye-opening how little power you need for quite loud audio. Most systems you wouldn't want to listen to at over 5W. Eg for, say two Kef R7 speakers which have a sensitivity of 88dB, at only 5W, from 3m away is 94.4dB. That is LOUD. At 2W, it's 90.5dB. Also LOUD. https://mehlau.net/audio/spl/ https://mehlau.net/audio/spl/ (+6dB for two speakers) You don't need a 5000W amp. But they don't understand any of this so they just think higher number and more expensive equals better. It's like buying a Mack truck because you heard it carries more than a hatchback when you're going to the supermarket, and thinking it must be better because it's more expensive.