I recently began to understand (at least I hope so) a few more correlations in this context than before.
It certainly all depends on the effort taken to reduce noise in a transport or streamer/server.
But assumed a transport plays from cache and not from disc and otherwise similar effort is taken to suppress or avoid noise as well as for power supplies etc. as in the compared streamer/server, the transport must logically beat the streamer/server, as the latter, by having more processing work to do, possibly an SSD with an add. processor or a HDD with add. spinning discs inside and having to deal with an incoming network connection, has worse preconditions. Ok you can say as long as the disc drive inside the transport still spins while the unit is playing from cache, thereās a similar source for noise inside, but anyway I think its preconditions are better if the same anti noise effort is taken around it. A transport which first reads the whole disc into cache and then switches the drive off and plays from memory might be the best theoretical solution, as itās somehow like a comparable streamer without external network connection
All this assumed one doesnāt stream online but from own storage and doesnāt use Flac or other non native PCM Format, but AIF or Wav, otherwise the streamer has another disadvantage.
But whatās the streaming advantage? That with a transport one can only play the limited availability of SACDāās as hires, but one has to play most of all available music as CD format, which is otherwise to a large extent available as hires for streaming. Certainly a big disadvantageā¦not so relevant for those who mainly want to play their already existing CD collection.
Finally I personally think the remaining quality differences between a drive and a streamer, designed with similar care for anti noise measures nowadays are smaller, than the sound quality benefit of tons of hires by streaming vs. CD quality from a spinner.
Another matter Iād love to go more in detail with people who are into the comparison processes and experience all this. So far most just obtain information to scratch the surface and take false conclusions.
As nowadays still quite a lot happens around anti noise measures and things are not fully experienced yet even among experts, Iād say, the later released unit with the newer technology currently by trend beats the one released before, no matter if drive or streamer.
Thatās good to know, but I thought there was some sort of licensing agreement that prevented playing SACDs from a DAC, unless permission was granted?
Thanks for all the input to my original question. I decided to take the plunge and ordered a PST today. I was a little surprised as I placed the order and about an hour later I received shipping status. When I bought my SP3 & SPP units, I had to wait several weeks for shipping. By no means am I complaining!
Thanks a lot Scott. I am really looking forward to it and will report back. I will not be able to take full advantage of its capabilities with not having a DS DAC, but I will likely be one of the first to buy the new DS mkII when released next year.
Actually, I share the same opinion. I am looking forward to running the PST through all 3 DACs to see how they will perform with it. However, at some point I think I will have to have an audio garage sale.
And after you have saved all your shekels for a PST, of which I am a proud owner,
be sure to get a good HMI cable. The transport gets even better as you go up the food
chain in cables.
