From what I understand, wifi is in electrical terms very noisy, and is best avoided for performance reasons. On top of that, bad wifi is something out of the manufacturer’s control and a constant source of problems.
I was advised many years ago to stick to wired connections, perhaps the best advice I’ve received.
Even my wifi is wired, in the sense of only using access points, no mesh. Tried mesh, it was flaky.
Yet Auralic recommend wifi connection over ethernet as they say they invested a lot into wifi circuitry
Thing is…no matter how much they may have invested in improving wifi circuitry in their devices, there are just a ton of variables involved with wireless communications that are not a factor if you use a wire, and none of those variables can be controlled by any manufacturer.
Others took a shot at wifi, including dCS, Leema, Gold Note, Lindemann, Matrix, Lumin, and South Korean Novafidelity. To me that sounds like some serious players got wifi sussed.
I only use wifi with my Aurulic Aries G2, no issues about noise coming down a bit of wire from every bit of kit in my network
Many thanks @jamesh! I’ve edited the post above on knowns/unknowns to bring out ethernet and wifi connectivity 
As I’ve found out, the by-product of noise/interference doesn’t just present itself as hiss or hum. It is evident in the music as excess bloat, boom and harsher highs. Not saying you have any of those in excess, just saying that’s how I evaluate a ‘noisy’ component/cable/circuit/interface.
Who agreed on that? So why is there:
AAC, and other proprietary file formats (lossy compressed)
But lossless and/or high res is worse:
ALAC, FLAC, IAFF, DFD, DXD, MQA to name a few and then all in a plethora of resolutions and sample frequencies.
It’s a mess.
Yes, my IBS is playing me up a bit atm.
Yes, it is all very messy. Though many of the codec implementations just put the same PCM data into different containers (FLAC, AIFF, ETC). And I usually cannot tell the difference between these with my ears and my equipment.
Since this is a thread about the new PS Audio Octave devices, it would be nice to hear from the company itself whether it thinks it’s new equipment will send exactly the same data with no jitter etc etc differences via I2S HDMI to a DAC… no matter whether the source file (on a NAS in my case) is contained in FLAC8 or in AIFF.
I sure hope so because I am not sure my 4TB SSD has room on it for me to unpack my FLAC8 files.
But what I most would like to see at this point are some previews on the app. I am hoping for something that compares with Bluesound, which would also save me from Roon.
While I am typing… big thanks out to stevensegal. I just picked up Gabriel Mervine’s People on the Bandcamp site for $8 in 16-44 downloaded as FLAC. While I was there, I picked up 2X1=4 by F.S. Blumm & Nils Frahm. This is another example of getting 24-bit from Bandcamp without it being labelled as such. 24-96 in this case.
And then since it is a holiday, I also downloaded Gabriel Mervine’s Say Somthin from PS Audio Octave Records for $29… a bit more than the $13 from Qobuz for 26-96. But it comes in many more flavours from PS Audio: DSD, 24-192, 24-96 and 24-44. I will probably just put the DSD and the 24-96 on my server.
My ears like wav 192 more 
and I am referring to Say Somethin’ played via Matrix & DS DAC.
Hopefully we will be able to fully disable the wifi.
It’s not a mess at all.
mp3 is an ISO standard - the global standardisation body, supported by 165 countries, been around for 75 years. It is the most common format used by most mobile devices, online audio and video, because it uses low data rates and is open source. Originally AAC was not open source.
Apple started large scale streaming with iTunes and was the market leader for a long time, so it is hardly surprising that it has its own formats AIFF, superseded by ALAC.
AAC is also an apple format, is also an ISO standard, and is very important as it is commonly used in radio broadcasting, including by the BBC (the largest global radio broadcaster). The reason being AAC provides better sound quality at low bitrates than mp3. Bear in mind radio is often broadcast as low as 48kbs and 128kbs is pretty standard. Various ISO standards are agrees for AAC.
WAV is used on CDs and is used for bit perfect rips (all my rips are WAV).
FLAC is compressed lossless and benefits large libraries as it uses half the space as WAV.
PCM is basically the standard format for recording and for lossless playback. DXD is just a brand name for higher rate PCM.
MQA is not a codec, it’s really just a form of DRM.
So within your perspective of home audio it might look a mess, but most codecs exist for good reason outside the narrow field of high-end audio and the most widely used are AAC and mp3 because the vast majority of recorded and broadcast speech and music is at 320kbs or less.
I think you’re both correct somehow.
No one except audiophiles and computer freaks cares about formats and doesn’t have to. They just stream what’s available on each platform and ignore options.
Thats certainly far from best quality, but no one cares, which is usual.
Fortunately freaks on production side care for freaks on consumer side to fulfill their quality demands. Only those freak consumers have to care about the mess and they know why. Because convenience and not caring means no (or little) quality.
Ah, @ Serhan, but do you prefer WAV 192 to DSD? Note: The max PCM that I put on my network for multiroom speakers is 96 because some of the devices top out at 96. And a speaker in the ceiling behind a bookcase is not so audiophile anyway. The Gabriel Mervine might be the first recording I have in both 192 and DSD. I may only have more versions of DSOTM, WYWH, LA Woman and Yes Fragile. I guess I should compare. Normally I just play the DSD if I have it.
PS @ stevensegal… totally understand the wider applicability of MP3. Just not so much here in this forum since even I can tell the difference between MP3-320 and 16-44. I met Tom Stockham once and he told me there was a reason that 16-44 was selected; humans can hear worse, but not normally better! It was not just about fitting Beethoven 9 onto a CD.
Most music is listened via broadcast, online or via wireless headphones. So broadcast engineers, for example, want the best sound quality from the smallest amount of data (hence the preference for AAC). Diametrically opposite are audiophiles, who prefer formats with vast data redundancy.
@Serhan doesn’t seem to get that there are many international standards because of the many ways music is transmitted, and frankly 2-channel HD audio is probably the smallest user groups.
I’m currently listening through 6 ceiling speakers playing a 24/192 file by uPnP. It sounds great as it is more immersive than the Wilson 2-channel speakers in the same room.
Our daughter is happiest listening to Spotify on her Bose wireless headphones that have noise cancelling. Over the years she’s been exposed to all sorts of hifi and knows better. She’s had access to both Qobuz and Tidal and never uses them. She’s had Spotify for years and it’s her music library.
Too each their own.
I’ll be right back, I have to clean another LP.
Happy Thanksgiving!
That is what I mean, I miss the balance in this.
On one side I do not want to care about file formats as the music is what I want to listen to. So the sound quality becomes less of a criteria if I want to listen to music.
On the other side I care for quality, but when it comes to high res there are an exponential increasing number of formats for extremely limited choices of music. The low volumes cause extremely high prices for the music. There is a limit to what the market is prepared to pay for. That is what I refer to as “a mess”.