CD transport vs streamer?

I potential buyer of a Toslink cable I had a while back claimed that the standard Mac actually downsampled to 44/48kHz out of the digital out. I think the MacBook Pro does not downsample. Sort of like Apple's version of K-mixer ???

DC

"I am presently using a squeezebox unmodded and streaming via ethernet (not wi fi) uncompressed files from a Mac. I am feeding this into my Weiss Medea DAC (tried both Toslink and coaxial). However, comparing it to using my Jason transport, the sound is significantly worse. eg in Jazz at the Pawnshop, I can hear the liveness of the recording, on the streamed music it sounds like it was recorded in an anechoic chamber. Same when i stream from my apple TV via toslink.

Has anyone found a way of streaming that actually can outdo a high end CD player?"

Technically we're not streaming when using a computer based hard-disk solution for playback, not trying to be picky, but the jargon matters. Yes, you are using an ethernet cable but streaming implies a telecommunications network, and it seems the only main distinction we can make nowadays is wired vs. wireless. A wired "ethernet" connection should offer no bandwidth concerns.

FLAC, ALAC, APE all have to be decoded upon playback, not transcoded (converted from one format to another FLAC>APE). Transcoding is a full cycle of encoded file>decoded>re-encoded.

I find it interesting that you have discovered such a marked difference with your wired connection. What is the front end software producing playback? iTunes?

Are you using the digital volume control on the squeezebox in excess?

How old is the squeezebox?

DC

You can try this for FLAC in iTunes:

http://blowintopieces.com/fluke/

DC

Streaming media is data transferred in a stream of packets that are interpreted and rendered, in real time, by a software application as the packets arrive.

Streaming is not only limited to telecommunication networks anymore. An end-user may also stream media content over their Local Area Network (LAN), from a hard drive storage system to a media player such as a Logitech Squeezebox hooked up to an audio system.

Rich

I am using iTunes with apple lossless and i have set the digital vol control to max on the squeezebox and squeezecentre.