Audio Empire wrote:
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:07:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"Chuck Finley" wrote in message
...
I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space
was
still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320
and
192.
Shouldn't be a problem.
Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD
quality or hi-rez music,
Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities.
Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations.
Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using IC
converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial,
high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound better
than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly
different from one another. These differences manifest themselves mostly as
differences in top-end musicality and sound-staging. The better the DAC, the
more real the top-end sounds, strings, even percussion such as high-hats,
take on a sheen and a realism that one generally only hears live.
Sorry, but this simply defies common sense. All those completely different made
integrated DACs (they differ in their high level designs, algorithms, filters,
etc) sound the same and measurement show they should. Everyone should expect
that they're simply transparent -- if very different designs sounds converge to
just the one sound, one would expect the convergence is to some predesigned
sound -- and all manufactureres claim that "predesigned sound" is simply being
neutral. Measurements of those devices show the same -- that they are just neutral.
And then some butique discrete component devices (with all the problems of
discrete components like uneven heating) are claimed to all sound different from
both all those integrated things as well as from one another. And sound better.
Better than completely neutral?
This is
hardly subtle, and in a DBT is jaw-droppingly and statistically apparent.
Sorry, but all published DBTs show otherwise. And in the case of that one test
you failed to show that there was anything statistically aparent. We only can go
with what you have disclosed about that test, and from what you have disclosed
there is no statistical siginificance (as tehre were serious flaws wrt statistics).
[...]
rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)