How a network streamer works

A streamer is where a digital system starts. It fetches music over your home network, from a streaming service or from files on a computer or a drive of your own, and hands the stream to a DAC: one built into the streamer, or a separate box on a cable. The app on your phone is only the remote. It tells the streamer what to play, and the streamer fetches the music and plays it itself, so it keeps going when you take a call. AirPlay and Bluetooth are the exceptions, because there the phone sends the music.

Inside is a small computer. The music comes in through the Ethernet socket or the Wi-Fi antennas, the processor runs the streaming software and unpacks each file, and two clocks time the samples on their way out. The USB, coaxial and optical sockets carry the stream to a separate DAC. Many streamers, like this one, also have a small DAC of their own with RCA outputs, but not all do. Because it is a computer, your network and the streamer’s software matter as much as the box: a weak Wi-Fi signal means dropouts, and an update can add a service or fix one.