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[JBS]

This may or may not be of any interest but I'll share it in case it is. I have been playing with various ways to stream my digital audio library across the house using JRiver. As long as I have a media renderer at the end point I am set with the digital music served. I am playing thru some KEF LS50 wireless speakers but have three media renderers handy at that location. I was curious what difference if any I would hear as all the audio is digital and the DAC conversion is taking place in the LS50s. I've yet to step into a full fledged streamer as it seems like so much can be easily handled with other means if the user is reasonable tech savvy. Maybe that is incorrect.

When going direct to the KEFs (wireless) the audio is super clear and very well defined. I then connected to a Sony Blueray player which is DLNA compatible. The cabling from the Sony Blueray (BDP 3500) is via HDMI output to the TV and then TV optical output into the KEFs optical input. Here after adjusting for volume differences I'm not sure I could hear much difference and the sound was still quite good. I'd give the edge to the KEFs in wireless mode but did not listen for super long.

Then I was curious to try the 6 yr old Samsung TV as the DLNA device as pretty much all TVs have this option. Easy enough to get working and again the TV optical output goes directly to the KEFs. Here the sound became relatively muddy and lacking in the same definition. Even weirder is that the right and left channels were now reversed. Yes reversed from the above two tests. I tested this like 3 times as I always suspect user (i.e. me) error.  I'm really not sure why the TV based media rendering sounds relatively poor and certainly no clue how the channels are reversed.

So my simple lesson is that yes the actual media renderer does matter to a decent degree in the digital domain. I know to most this is probably obvious but I am a "show me" kind of guy. Maybe someone else has tried something like this or understands why the differences are so dramatic.

[Wheaten]

Interesting,
I would expect that the lower HDMI version on the old TV would be the limiting factor (besides the channel swap) to the quality. As the DNLA only added more functionality and supported hardware?

[wer]

The real lesson is not so much that renderers or controllers can be of different "quality" but that you never know what a renderer is going to do. You would expect a renderer to get the file, and then just play it without modification. But you can't really be sure that's what it's doing, unless you try and measure it.

It sounds like the TV is doing some sort processing of the audio. It might decode the DLNA file, process it, and then send it out the optical port. It might be doing SRS, bass/treble, or who knows what.  But it seems it processes DLNA data differently than HDMI, which perhaps it is just passing through (as it should).

If you have the means (REW and a calibrated microphone) then you could measure the output and actually get a very good idea of what's happening.

Regarding the Sony vs KEF wireless: even a 0.5 or 1db volume difference can color your assessment of which sounds "better". Assuming the Sony is passing the PCM data unaltered, the should sound identical, so again measuring would allow you to exactly match the output levels to assess that.

As an aside, you said you had three renderers, but only mentioned two (Samsung and Sony).  If you are playing DLNA wirelessly to the KEF, the speaker itself would be the renderer, and MC would be the controller.

[JBS]

wer, Sorry for being unclear. Yes the KEFs are the third renderer in that comparison. I was using them directly via wireless. My lesson was just what you said, that one needs to know/understand exactly what the renderer is doing. Who would have thought the TV renderer would swap channels. Plus do who knows what else. I have checked the sound settings and nothing odd. I will never use it again knowingly as a renderer.

I do have some measurement gear (total newbie) and if I do measure anything I'll post back here. Thx