NVIDIA Shield Pro with an external DAC - possible?

[panteragstk]

I could swear I was able to get some MQA tracks to output 24/96 using the Tidal app of an Nvidia Shield Pro. Does it output 24/192 when playing their new 24/192 FLAC tracks?

24/96 is no issue. I haven't seen anything at 24/192, but 24/88.2 and 24/96 are on a lot of tracks. I haven't seen the FLAC tag on anything yet, so the Android TV app may not support it yet.

 

[Trebdp83]

Yeah, the hi-res FLAC tracks should say MAX rather than MQA. But, as you said, they may not be ready on some streamers including the Nvidia Shield Pro.

 

[TLS Guy]

RF/electromagnetic "pollution" comes to digital audio signal from cheap switching power supplies, WiFi circuitry in close proximity to DAC chipset. High quality streamers have properly shielded internal boards and best ones have all major components galvanically isolated with fiberoptic cables.
Source material is important, eletronics , power supply, cables, everything. I use Shield for music and video but I'd rather stream music from a dedicated streamer like Bluesound Node and use Shield for video only.

Oh dear! You really have consumed a feast of Audiophool cod's wallop, and have indigestion.

Digital signals are by their nature extremely resistant to degradation. What you have been told is absolute nonsense. Even if the digital stream were contaminated which is highly unlikely the Reed Solomon Error correction build into the system is extremely robust, and corrects errors to 100% the original. There is no degradation.

So all the BS about RF interference is BOGUS as Click and Clack used to say.

I do not have a Nvidia Shield but it is a highly regarded streamer. Connected to a competent DAC you will be fine.

 

[Eppie]

The noise from cheap power supplies really only applies to audio circuits. For example, if you add a good quality DAC HAT to a Raspberry Pi, they can pick up noise if you have a crappy switch mode power supply because switch mode power supplies use high frequency oscillating circuits to produce DC and require proper filtering. Not much different than 60 cycle hum from a cheap linear power supply.

Digital signals are just that and no more. It does not matter whether the digital stream is computer data or audio converted to digital formats. We have hundreds of meters of CAT-5 or CAT-6 cable at the office. Just imagine what would happen if RF "pollution" started corrupting bits. The fact is that it doesn't happen. Digital transmission is very robust with built in error correction and it's been that way for decades. How else could you download a bit perfect copy of a 4GB video file? The notion of audiophile USB and network cables is laughable.

Galvanic isolation is a load of crap too. Galvanic corrosion occurs between dissimilar metals and is not an issue with modern electronic circuits. I've never seen a streamer that uses fibre optics internally. That should not be confused with opto-isolators which have a different purpose and are quite common.

 

[panteragstk]

Yeah, the hi-res FLAC tracks should say MAX rather than MQA. But, as you said, they may not be ready on some streamers including the Nvidia Shield Pro.

They say MAX on Android TV. The Tidal desktop app says MAX FLAC.