@geoffmartin, to me the Apple Music Lossless via Airplay from iphone13 to BS2 sounds a bit blurry to me in comparison to Wired through DAC+Pre-amp, it might be the issues described in the page provided by Stan wrt Bit Perfect issue over Airplay(https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/apple-music-lossless-mess-part-2-airplay-r1026/), my BS2 is a 2017 made version, not sure it is a Airplay1 or Airplay2 version.

The easiest way to examine whether it is due to Bit In-perfect issue over Airplay is to compare the sound(still objectively since i only have my ears :)) between Build-in Deezer steaming over WIFI and Deezer app on Iphone13 over Airplay :)

Hi,

Sorry - the only way to find out if something is bit perfect is to actually measure it, bit for bit. And, as I said before, there are so many other things going on that you can't trust your ears...

Even a 1 dB difference in output levels will skew opinions when there are no other differences.

Gottcha, thanks a lot! Wish you a nice day!

You too!

FYI: I just read what I wrote above - I said "you can't trust your ears" - but to be perfectly clear: I don't trust my ears either. Ears are notoriously untrustworthy - they'll blindly believe anything they hear! :D

Morning greetings! Have been putting a lot of time reading/studying through articles on your blogger today :)

When talking about ears are untrustworthy, do you think different power cable will make BS2 sound differently, since I seemed to notice some differences(better sound quality, meaning punchier Bass and brighter Highs) by switching the power cable from BS2 original to AudioQuest NRG-X2 :)

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When talking about ears are untrustworthy, do you think different power cable will make BS2 sound differently, since I seemed to notice some differences(better sound quality, meaning punchier Bass and brighter Highs) by switching the power cable from BS2 original to AudioQuest NRG-X2 ?

Definitely not. The only difference a fancy new power cable will make is on the weight of your wallet. :-) You'll get the same effect by keeping the original power cable and turning up the volume by 1 or 2 steps.

Hi geoffmartin,

Thanks! BTW,  any diff wrt sound quality between Wired(Powerlink) and Wireless(WiSA), thanks.

Hey Geoff,

There is a noticeable difference in the amount of bass when I switch from power link to optical from Beosound Core to Beolab 50. The power link sounds more bass heavy, while the optical sounds more balanced. What causes this difference?

 

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Hi geoffmartin, Thanks! BTW, any diff wrt sound quality between Wired(Powerlink) and Wireless(WiSA), thanks.

Yes, but the differences are not easily explained in one sentence. Power Link is an analogue connection, so you have the addition of the noise floor of both the DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) of the source device and the ADC (Analogue to Digital Converter) of the input device. Typically, the noise floor of an ADC is higher than that of a DAC (a good rule of thumb as you go through life...). Wireless Power Link is a digital connection, so the noise floor is defined by the word length of the signal that is being sent (and possibly the sampling rate converter of the transmission and/or receiving device). In the case of the word length, it's a 24-bit signal, which puts the noise floor at about 141 dB below the maximum - which is well below the noise floor of the rest of the system. However, any low-latency wireless audio transmission can/will have errors caused by anything ranging from a cat walking between the transmitter and the receiver antennae and a police car driving by using a radar. As with most/all other low-latency wireless audio systems, WPL uses error concealment (rather than error correction - there's no time for that...) to recover from those errors. My last test of WPL involved putting a transmitter and a receiver 1 m apart, and sending a signal through it, checking that the bits that came out were the ones I put in. This test ran for 24 hours a day for 11 days and I got 0 bit errors in that time. However, if I waved my hand between the two antennae, I could see the error rate go up. NOTE however, that this does not mean that you can hear those errors - this is dependent on how bad the error is (which, in turn is a result of what caused it) - but they exist. When you ask about sound quality" there are too many aspects / dimensions to say which is better or worse, because we're talking about which you prefer. If you never listen at a high enough volume setting to make the noise floor of the Power Link signal audible, then this is a non-issue. IF you live in a densely-populated apartment building with a lot of RF noise (e.g. microwave ovens, numerous WiFi networks, and a high crime rate with lots of police presence and ambulances) then maybe WPL is not the best solution for you... Which means that the answer to your question is "it depends", which is not terribly helpful, but honest.