> Passing all those ones and zeros around is never completely without loss > and error. Yes, it is. If it were not, then sometimes when you came to this forum the background would be green, or my name would be padish instead of radish. But that doesn't happen, because TCP/IP guarantees that either the data gets there perfectly, or it doesn't get there at all (and what's more, if it doesn't get there at all, you know about it). If this didn't work the entire internet would grind to a halt.
One of the key reasons TCP/IP can work this way and audio-related data transfers (like reading a CD or sending SPDIF to a DAC) can't is that they are realtime - there is no scope for a retry or resend. With network protocols not only can we 100% guarantee that every error will be detected (and yes, of course, there are errors) we can also resend the data which got corrupted, and keep resending it until it gets there properly. That's why these devices have buffers, that's why low strength wireless causes the music to break up sometimes (the number of errors & resends gets so high the buffer drains). But when the data gets there, we know it's correct. -- radish _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
