Like its bigger brothers, the Music Streamer III is entirely powered by the USB host device.
This last, however is merely part of continuous development it’s the three-chip output stage that represents the big difference, and brings the performance of the III up a notch. It’s also subject to some more miniaturisation the EPROM that used to sit in a chip holder is now a surface mount device. The design still uses a TAS1020B chip as USB receiver, with a Burr-Brown PCM1794 as DAC, but where the II used a single output chip, the newer model uses three chips in an arrangement very similar to the II+. In fact, there’s not a great deal separating the more up-market model II+ from the III in some respects too. Grey end cheeks and the roman numeral ‘III’ aside, visually and on-paper, there’s not a great deal separating this generation of Music Streamer from the last.
This might not sit well with those obsessed with DSD, and this is not the place to create a lengthy aside over high resolution, but it strikes me that there are possibly more people crossing products like the Music Streamer III off the list because they like the idea of high-resolution audio, and FOMO (fear of missing out). This is a difficult admission to make in audiophile terms, but from a studio engineering stance, 24/96 is inherently ‘right’ a lot of studio equipment tops off at 24/96 precision, and 24/192 is at best overkill and often simply upsampled. It gets past the ‘more is better’ demands of the public by virtue of being inexpensive enough to be both mass market in approach (where 24/96 support is not important) and ‘forgivable’ by the audiophiles (who might spend the cost of the Music Streamer III on high-end fuses). But, computer audio in the home is a numbers game five years on, is 96kHz enough? This new version of the entry-level HRT DAC brings asynchronous USB transfer and 24-bit, 96kHz support, without the need for additional drivers.
The latest Music Streamer III continues the trend. The High Resolution Technologies Music Streamer was one of the first USB-powered digital converters, and the brand was one of the first in its field to be taken seriously by audiophiles.
0 kommentar(er)
