Network Dropouts

[Mike48]

Thanks, Magister. It's good to know of others' experiences. There is nothing special in my setup that would make it exempt from those issues.

I agree: I prefer to have a tablet at hand than a computer in the audio room. But after listening to USB audio from my laptop through an all-Bryston system and Ariel 7T speakers at a local dealer, I am beginning to rethink that. That system sounded wonderful, and there wasn't a click, pop, or dropout of any kind. It seems that right now, network streaming is not yet sufficiently perfected, and that makes it a black hole for the customer's money. There are those who say "it works for me", but it should work for everyone.

It is troubling that, even through wired Ethernet, one can't stream high-res audio reliably, which requires a small fraction of the available bandwidth. To me, that points to under-engineering of the stream receivers and/or DACs involved. Perhaps much larger buffers are needed. That should be trivial, given the low cost of memory today.