Faster internet = better sound
 

I finally was forced to upgrade my internet speed since my wife is doing a lot of Zoom meetings for her work now. I just switched from a 30 Mbps connection to 400 Mbps connection. She is actually getting 484 Mbps at her laptop via Wi-Fi from our 5GB router setting. My music streamer has always been direct cable connected and I was very happy with it but now I am now hearing a huge musical improvement. It is the kind of improvement that is keeping me up listening to my old favorites for the first time. I would have done this years ago if I only knew.

You are very lucky to have that option!

I have the 1G internet but honestly did not notice any difference from the 100Mbps. I think as long as there are no dropouts, it should not matter.

I noticed on the faster songs, it does sound better. :D

Sorry, couldn’t resist. ;)

You are on to something there... :running:

Very interesting. Have you compared streaming to locally stored files/CDs?

My original post was for the improvement I heard in my system when I upgraded from an internet speed of 30Mbps to 400Mbps while streaming.

I have compared many times in the past streaming to locally stored files/CDs. I find that I often prefer what others do not. For me with my system, I would say my preferences from favorite to least favorite would be SACD, CD, Hi-Res downloads, Tidal MQA, Qobuz Hi-Res, Tidal CD quality, Qobuz CD quality, ripped CDs, Spotify. I would say at least 90% of my listening is Tidal MQA since I don't need to get up and stick in another SACD or CD. I find I have gotten lazy over the years.

If you are not listening to an MQA DAC that will unfold it, you are essentially listening to a lossy sound that punishes you with 13 bits of quality.

Serge, he has the Berkeley Alpha DAC Ref. Series 3 MQA.

I have only listened to Tidal MQA through a Berkeley MQA DAC. I had the DAC before MQA came out on my Aurenders, first the N10 and then the W20SE.