[Scott Dorsey]

James Price wrote:
After listening to some blind tests from Ethan Winer and a few others, it s=
eems, at least to me, that differences between some of the higher and lower=
end converters is fairly subtle. Of course, this could be due to my monito=
ring, though I tend to think Mackie HR824's would be suitable to differenti=
ate any significant discrepancies.

This is increasingly the case.

For instance, a few samples Ethan recorded in 2010 pitted an Apogee 8000 ag=
ainst a $25 SoundBlaster. The differences seemed so negligible as to be inc=
onsequential to my ears.

The question becomes one of wondering what is inconsequential. Stuff that
is inaudible in one generation becomes a serious problem in ten. Stuff that
is a non-issue when you can keep levels up becomes a problem when you have
to drop reference levels down 40dB.

Back in the eighties the name of the game was doing everything possible to
make signals into the converters perfect and allow as little level slop
as you can get away with. Now you don't have to do that so much, likely
not even with the $25 soundblaster.

Any thoughts?

I can hear the difference between the Prism and Apogee converters, but I won't
say that one or the other is necessarily better. I haven't compared the
Apogee with a $25 soundblaster... but I will say that the age of sigma delta
conversion means that you can get a hell of a good conversion job for $25.

Still, if I can do a little bit better, I will. Because really, that's my
job.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."