Carolpa wrote:

This not an answer to Pastaj question! He simply asks for the difference in streaming quality.

Well english seems to say something else, but most likely I'm wrong. Than sorry all.

GLOP wrote:

Than sorry all.

hi all, thanks for all the input!  ended up going down the wormhole and educated myself on the topic and I've found that the answer is not all that straightfoward. Here's what i've surmised....

By BT, which i erroneously used, i actually meant using Airplay 2 from my phone to the Core/Harmony.  Next, there may be actual differences between the two but i chose to go with the harmony instead of having another source such as the core. This isnt to say that its a better solution. From the sounds of it, there may be MUCH better but MUCH more expensive solutions to streaming HIRES audio but that wasnt really the point of my initial post so i wont open that can of worms....too much...

If the DAC in the core and harmony are identical, AND the cables or connections from said DAC to your speakers are the same, then there may not be much of a difference at all. BUT since the core and harmony are "connected" to the speakers differently, there may be some difference and that may be what i was hearing. BUT, what i seemed to be noticing as a difference was the perceived volume of the harmony vs the core as well as "depth" of the sound. This may have been further confounded by me streaming different sources and not realizing that spotify vs pandora vs tidal/qobuz are all different qualities of source material and i really was naive to this. I am now currently using qobuz after a short dabble with TIDAL but i was turned off to TIDAL and MQA after a lot of research into MQA and deciding that qobuz and the use of FLAC was the best option available to me currently for my needs. 

Lastly, i noticed a nice improvement in sound using google/chromecast to cast to the harmony, where i can take advantage of 24/96. I am exploring options to further improve playback quality and i have been looking at the roon nucleus and more recently the PS Audio direct stream DAC but it is $$$$ and the only way i can see it connecting to my setup would be via RCA directly to the 50s. It has XLR outputs and im wondering if there is a conversion cable from XLR to PL. But then that raises the question of such an expensive DAC being used if the signal gets converted back to digital either when it connects to the harmony or if there is any conversion A-D and then D-A inside the 50s. anyways.....SO MUCH FUN STUFF. lol

So, long and short....I have qobuz and amazon HD (trial) that i cast to the harmony and it sounds good enough for now! hope that sheds some light as its been a fun time educating myself (plz, if anything i said is blatantly wrong please correct me)

CHEERS!

Btw....18s > 28s  IMO  ;-)

and sorry about being AWOL on this post, i unfortunately had a small moto accident and have been recovering and whatnot. 

Looking back at some of the replies, i wanted to clarify my original question. 

I noticed a difference in sound quality, whether it was just the volume of the source but what also seemed to be a less "dynamic" sound when i had the core connected to my 50s directly with a decent audioquest optical cable. I then switched back to using the skinny black PL cable that came with the core and it immediately sounded better.  For those asking, this was using airplay 2 to "control" the spotify app on my phone and stream from the CORE directly to the 50s. Im not sure i ever used a "spotify app" within the core as what was mentioned earlier. I just open spotify on my phone and then select the airplay to core option. 

Once i got the Harmony i assumed it basically had a core inside of it so what was the point of keeping the core.  Whether im right or wrong i do not know but to save $1000 i opted to return the core. This was for 2 reasons, 1) the harmony was a simplier solution and i had less gear sitting out in my living room by returning the CORE. 2) if i really wanted to get HIRES audio or get the most out of streaming audio, there were more refined solutions out there for streaming for a slightly higher price than the core. 

Then i went down the wormhole of HIRES and found MQA thinking it was the holy grail but quick research shows that it is still a lossy compression technique that seemed to be designed to transmit large files in a more economical way. Then i discovered DSD and thats where the PS Audio directstream DAC comes in. Even this still essentially "upconverts" source material so i just said forget it for now. I just went with finding the best source material i could but also keeping in mind ease of use. I still want to be able to just use my phone to play music so i recognize and accept the limitations of that. 

Then, as was mentioned before, it seems the best solution for that now is casting my music as it has higher quality than airplay 2 (24/96 vs 24/44.1)

lastly, all of the above mumbo jumbo doesnt even factor in what i do not know...which is any or all processing that occurs once the signal reaches the 50s. And if signfiicant DSP occurs then its really all lost in the wash for me and thats where my interest and willingness to sink mental energy and $$$ into has stopped currently. I may revisit the topic later, but for now, im pretty happy with just casting qobuz to the harmony and then playing it with the 50s

hope that helps! 

Cheers!

my only problem with that solution, and correct me if im wrong, is that the core was only able to stream (natively) spotify and deezer? i dont know if qobuz was supported. but either way, it doesnt overcome the issue of me "casting" my material which is immediately capped at 24/96, so optical transmission at 192 wouldnt ever happen. Am i correct? it just seemed that the core didnt seem to support the direction i was heading in, and for $1000, there were other options that would. I would love to get your input on this. right now, my understanding, and correct me if im wrong, is that by using googlecast im able to get 24/96 out of my audio streams

another question that comes up, which i understand sending the digital signal from the core and PL being analog, but lets say i use an optical to the main 50. what about the connection from the main to the secondary 50? its the same "cat 7" cable. Is that a digital signal being sent over that? if so, why doesnt BO just send the same signal from the harmony to the 50s. Why send analog from the harmony to the 50 with a cat 7 cable and then allow digital transmission from the primary to the secondary speaker? Is that what is happening? when i see an ethernet cable i just assume its digital signal being transmitted. some clarity here would help bc i agree with you and your statement about using optical to send the digital signal and only having the speaker do a single conversion from D to A

pastaj wrote:

another question that comes up, which i understand sending the digital signal from the core and PL being analog, but lets say i use an optical to the main 50. what about the connection from the main to the secondary 50? its the same "cat 7" cable. Is that a digital signal being sent over that? if so, why doesnt BO just send the same signal from the harmony to the 50s. Why send analog from the harmony to the 50 with a cat 7 cable and then allow digital transmission from the primary to the secondary speaker? Is that what is happening? when i see an ethernet cable i just assume its digital signal being transmitted. some clarity here would help bc i agree with you and your statement about using optical to send the digital signal and only having the speaker do a single conversion from D to A

ok, so could you confirm that my thought process is correct?  here is my goal: get the best sound out of the 50s for listening in stereo...

First: Source:  so far the only source i plan to use is streaming audio. So far, for my purposes, it seems Qobuz is the best option for loseless HIRES (24/192) streaming. Obviously this is accounting for the original source recording quality and im not talking about upconverting or anything. Qobuz seems to be the only loseless 24/192 out there, MQA is not loseless and has its own issues with the folding unfolding process, both with loss of data and added data. 

Second: Connection from "source" to the 50s: the best option with as little back and forth from D-A A-D would be have a streaming unit such as a core or another manufacturer that is hardwired to the ethernet and has Qobuz or another HIRES app that it natively runs and therefore my phone is just "controlling" the functions of said app. Therefore i am not throttled by the limitations of googlecast which is 24/96.  THEN, if i have a high quality streamer, connect that directly to the 50s via USB, which would support 24/192. (optical/TOSLINK is limited to 24/96 no? you mentioned 192 earlier but is that correct?)

Third: If i choose to just stick with casting my qobuz phone app to the harmony then i should be able to retain 24/96 to the harmony and then from there it converts to A via its own DAC and outputs that to the 50s over PL at 24/96. Then that signal reaches the 50s which converts it back to D via the DAC in the 50, does some fancy processing, and then outputs the sound.  Am i following correct? And am i correct in my understanding that the Cat 7 cables that are connected from the PL out on the harmony to the PL in on the primary 50 carries that 24/96 signal in analog form?  I just want to make sure i understand that the Cat 7 cable is carrying an analog signal of the original digital 24/96 source from Qobuz.

If this is all true then i may just save the money in my quest to achieve 24/192 given my current setup as it sounds like there is no way to output 192 to the 50s via the Harmony. I would have to have a digital streamer that can support that output and then directly wire it via USB or S/P DIF to the 50s to get that quality. 

Sorry if this seems scatterbrained, its a torrid landscape up there. lol thanks for any and ALL input on this. im really trying to make sure i have a good handle on this topic as it seems to answer a lot of later questions when troubleshooting connections and trying to get the most out of these awesome speakers.