I apologize if this has been discussed previously on this forum, but a quick search didn't turn up anything directly relevant.
Here's what I'd like to know: I've seen in several places the suggestion that an upgraded wall-wart or PSU can improve the audio performance of the squeezebox. After giving this some thought and doing a bit of reading, I don't understand how this can possibly be the case, and I'd like to know what I'm missing (I should specify that my setup includes an external DAC; that is, I'm using the digital outs on the squeezebox. If you use the analogue outs, that's an entirely different story, and it does seem possible to me the PSU can make a difference. Also, I'm not talking about power surges etc., but just the squeezebox operating normally from an average household socket.). So why do I think the PSU is not relevant? If you use the digital out on the squeezebox, the only thing the box does is digital to digital conversion. By definition (as far as I understand), this can not induce jitter (jitter is errors in the sampling rate which occur at a DAC or ADC; it's not a characteristic of the digital stream itself or any purely digital data operation), and unless the PSU is so bad it causes errors in the digital processing, I simply don't see how it can cause any change to the sound. Put another way, what the squeezebox does is essentially the same thing the computer streaming to it does, only kind of in reverse. Here's what I mean: suppose your audio files are in WAV format on the hard drive for definiteness, then the process is something like this: computer: reads WAV file off hard disk -> compresses -> sends stream over the network sbox: receives stream -> decodes to digital audio format (Redbook I guess?) -> outputs to the digital out So if the PSU on the sbox has any effect on sound, it seems to me so should the PSU on the computer (never mind that I can't see what that effect could possibly be). Now, does anyone worry about the power supply for the computer? If you replace it with an improved model, or go to battery power on a laptop, does that suddenly make the sound "fuller, richer...." etc., as many threads claim about the squeezebox PSU upgrade? This should be very easy to test - stream from a laptop with a battery and simply have someone plug and unplug the power cable, and see if you can hear a difference. So in summary, as long as you use the digital outs, I don't understand how there can be any benefit to upgrading the PSU. Can someone please tell me what I'm missing here? -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=21556 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
