I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that I am one of those people that can tell the difference between flac decode on server or Touch. I have tested it with DBT and it is there. Its not huge, many other things make a bigger difference. I have not been able to tell any difference between the source file on the server being flac or wav. I did do a trial with streaming flac with different compression levels, that one was pretty inconclusive. There was maybe a hint that the higher compression levels are slightly worse, but I wouldn't stake anything on it.
As to the exact mechanism, I don't know, I have a guess, but no easy way to test it. The standard explanation that its "processor load" I'm pretty sure is false, my guess is that its differences in processor cache hit rates. The lower the cache hit rate the more the main memory has to be accessed. Every memory access puts a large electrical load on the system which shows up as noise on the PS and groundplane. I have done some tests with a simple ground plane analyzer and DO see differences in noise level and spectrum with different things going on in the Touch. I'm in the process of building a much more sensitive device and will be sure to do some tests with streaming type once I get it up and running. I run my system wired to the Touch with everything sent PCM, I have not had any downside to streaming PCM, and it does have a slight improvement in sound for me. If doing so caused any issues (not playing things, dropouts, cliks, pops, etc) I would have no qualms about streaming flac. John S. -- JohnSwenson ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=93970 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
