pi3 sd card vs Pi4 wifi or ethernet sq

[Mellowship]

Have a read on the following, it is about USB's way of transmitting digital info and audio signal. 



https://www.edn.com/fundamentals-of-usb-audio/

USB errors are fairly common, there is a good discussion:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/new-audi...2/page-485

Thanks for posting that.

I once had an audio engineer explain these problems with USB audio. He said that, in his experience, the quality of USB cables did make an audible difference.

Cheers,
Phil

I once tested a DAC with a USB cable that came with a zip drive and it was noisy as hell. Changed to another USB cable that came with a hard drive and no noise. Interesting thing is that the first cable had a good and tight external metal shielding and the second was very thin. 

My pi4 is directly connected with a normal usb cable, with just two ferrite beads, one at each end, to a smsl m500. I usually stream from tidal using mconnect upnp. Never noticed sounds degradation, distortion, noise, whatever. Using toslink from a mi box 4s, or coaxial from a NAD CD player, the sound is just the same when playing the same stuff. 

Also, I only use wi-fi, and the modern is just 2 feet away from the pi4. 

At 42, I'm starting to get less and less worried about these very small effects a certain tweak or change has on sound quality and more concerned about music itself.