As part of auditioning an SA30 and testing whether I could justify buying higher resolution music files, I started to build suite of test tracks in different formats (starting with iTunes and Apple Music sources but adding a variety of music in higher resolution uncompressed formats including some in DSD.
I can play these via a variety of routes (streamed over the network or direct from USB plugged into the SA30).
But I just made a couple of observations that might be relevant to beta testing the firmware. One is that I have not seen any obvious distortion using airplay (which always streams in apple lossless format). But I have some tracks that often cause distortion. But not always.
The first question is: would sharing or distributing a standard playlist of tracks (some are even available free in a variety of formats) be useful for people auditioning or testing the SA30?
The second question is: should Arcam use a standard suite of such test tracks in a variety of formats to help identify and isolate specific problems (which could be related to the transport mechanism of getting the music to the amplifier or could be faults in the DAC firmware)?