• OK, good to know. On your point about digital sources, and I'm not being in any way pugilistic about this, just want to know your take on it, isn't the difference between digital sources all about RF separation? E.g a streamer which has only 1 job to do vs a laptop which has a bunch of other processes generating noise. And if that's of benefit then something like a rPi steamer with a wall brick outputting directly from its own USB out vs a rPi with an isolated output board and low-noise power supply should give better SQ?

  • I think the various terms are often mixed up / confused in the marketing material of these audiophile components. For me interference is a separate issue to the quality. Especially when it’s something that can be luck of the draw to do with the way your house is wired or interplay between components. It’s also nothing to do with the digital signal itself and the fact it is transmitted via USB ports to eventually show up in the analog signal is a flaw of the standard (transmitters/receivers not isolated electrically) and it can be blocked before the analog stage without making any difference to the source signal at all.

  • If you measure the difference between batteries and a fairly normal power supply in a phono amp which is very sensitive to these issues you will find very little difference, maybe a few db at something like -128db. It's really theoretical.

    On the other hand if you have 2 items plugged into different power supplies and connecting them together by USB gives you a ground loop then it's more likely to be affecting normal levels of music. It's also common for cheap USB devices to pick up on rf noise from the computer.

    I would recommend you measure different problem noises and decide what you can live with.

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