How do audiophiles connect their lossless flac files to hifi

[gregorio]

CD transports have natural isolation from phase noise issues as well as emi and rfi hence why for the price they’re incredibly hard to beat. With streaming, you’re always fighting against jitter and EMI hence why you need to add these networking tweaks and immense power filtering on the source just to match the jitter and noise performance of a cd transport

CD could be described as having “natural isolation from phase noise issues as well as emi and rfi” and so could streaming. And you don’t “need to add these networking tweaks and immense power filtering on the source to match the jitter and noise performance of a cd transport”. If that were true, the internet wouldn’t even work!

G

 

[sygnus21]

I think the world audiophile is a broadly misunderstood term. Though I've always thought myself somewhat an "audiophile".... the fact of the matter is I've always had good gear cause I understood good gear sounded better. And I bought my gear not because it was titled audiophile gear, but because I thought it performed well and sounded great. I think the word "audiophile" is just a word thrown around by those wishing to categorize a group of people willing to spend on quality gear.

I might "act" like an audiophile, but it's all about the music experience. Period.

I'll listen to music anywhere on anything; but yes, given the choice, I'll always opt for the cleanest setup. I don't us BT to listen to music, but if that's all there is, I don't avoid it.

Regarding this thread...

Audiophiles typically avoid Bluetooth for high-res FLAC playback due to quality loss. Instead, they use USB connections from PC to DAC with bit-perfect playback (via WASAPI or ASIO), or network streamers like Raspberry Pi setups or dedicated devices (e.g., Bluesound Node) to ensure no resampling and full audio fidelity.

That's me for digital file playback. For CDs, CD player direct to DAC to headphone amp.

 

[ericj]

CD transports are a battlefield of disruptions that don't exist on random-access-with-memory-buffers DAP solutions.

If your DAC re-clocks, you can generally stop worrying about how strict the digital audio path is between the source and the DAC.

It's not that big of a deal. 35-40 years ago there were some hand-wringing articles written about digital audio based on things that were resolved 25-30 years ago.

 

[theveterans]

For local and streaming, I currently use Roon x HQPlayer (bit-perfect, passthrough, sounds waay better than Roon alone) x Diretta

 

[jamesjames]

CD transports are a battlefield of disruptions that don't exist on random-access-with-memory-buffers DAP solutions.

If your DAC re-clocks, you can generally stop worrying about how strict the digital audio path is between the source and the DAC.

It's not that big of a deal. 35-40 years ago there were some hand-wringing articles written about digital audio based on things that were resolved 25-30 years ago.

FWIW, I would agree that digital is a major advance on analogue in terms of both recording and playback. But there's good reason I think to distinguish different forms of digital playback, to minimise processing load and electrical noise for example, if the aim is to maximise SQ. For many this will seem overkill - for others it won't. CD transports, in particular, involve mechanical noise that sets it apart from some other issues with digital systems - as do HDD drives. Issues relating to processing load - often to the fore with multi-component digital systems - on the other hand are quite different. I think it's entirely reasonable to distinguish the architecture of digital systems in discussions about quality.