Very interesting test... I have been listening side-by-side to a Transporter (XLR out) vs an SB3->digital coax->Bryston BP25DA (DAC). I was listening to a variety of FLAC files of EAC ripped CDs. Through a balanced headphone rig, the only difference I could hear a slightly wider soundstage (n.b., I hadn't read this thread at this point), and maybe the Tranporter was slightly brighter.
When I switched over to my speaker rig (4B-SST->Watt Puppy 7s) I really couldn't hear much difference at all. This is probably because my listening room is an acoustic disaster (concrete floors, lots of glass, etc). Then I switced on the Inguz filter and all of the sudden the differences between the two systems became surprisingly audible again, more so than through my headphone rig. (Soundstage width in particular). Made me want to make the Transporter a permanent fixture in my speaker rig. Obviously, if the room correction is working, the most likely explanation is that I was hearing the sources more 'truly'. I had another thought, though. If I read things correctly, when I listen to my FLAC-encoded CD files without Inguz at fixed digital volume out, the DACs would be working at 16-bit, whereas with the Inguz plugin, everything comes out at 24-bit (think this is right). Does anyone have a data on whether DACs perform significantly differently at different bit-depths (SNR, jitter)? Could it have anything to do with up-sampling (Bryston DAC) vs not (Transporter)? (BTW, I realized a fairer test would have been Transporter XLR out vs Transporter digital coax into the Bryston DAC). muski -- muski ------------------------------------------------------------------------ muski's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3670 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35068 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
