I usually don’t get into these ‘x > y’ debates; life is too short to get stuck with a single music format. 85% of my music listening is via original CDs, 5% is via 320 kbps mp3s downloaded from mp3million and burned to CD-R, the rest is via Apple Music. The latter allows me to check out albums I might want to buy, or create playlists for tracks that I won’t. (Yo Yo Honey Singh is reserved for parties where I’d be stoned for playing jazz!)
Till recently, I was hooking up an iPad to the internal DAC in my Cayin tube amp via USB cable and streaming lossless. Since it was a wired connection, this created two problems:
- Changing tracks involved a long trek to the console from my couch potato location.
- At parties, I’d often experience a cardiac arrest as inebriated friends would hover over my setup, refreshing beverage in one hand, stabbing at the ipad with the other as they searched for their favourite tracks.
Which is why I decided to pick up an iFi Zen Blue v2 Bluetooth streamer. Sure, I’d be giving up ‘HiRez’ audio for a paltry 256 kbps file, but I really didn’t care. As long as I was discovering new music, the audio quality didn’t matter.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the Bluetooth stream sounded better than the iPad directly connected via USB! In the new setup, the iPad is streaming via BT to the iFi, which in turn is connected to a Denafrips Pontus via coaxial. (For some reason, the iPad to Pontus via USB never worked)
So, is it the DAC that’s the X factor here, or is it that bits don’t matter? Well, here’s a better question - who cares?!? As long as you’re listening to the music, and not your system, all will be well with the world