I respect your opions -- you guys have far more experience with computer audio than I. You want to believe in digital, and that all this manipulation of bytes will have no effect on the final sound-- it's just information after all, which can be "lossless." Theoretically perhaps it is, but that is not what I've found listening carefully. You want to believe that FLAC is FLAC, whether created by EAC's algorhythms or the SB3's. Are you certain?
There are a lot of uncontrolled variables here, despite all the claims to "science" being thrown around (including by me). I think one of the biggest which has not been mentioned is the DACs in the SB3 vs. an SACD player. I love Burr-Brown and I think the SB3 is a phenomenally well-designed box, but you would have to agree that even if you have identical source material (e.g. a CD ripped as wav into the server playing through the SB3 vs. the CD on the 555es) that these will inevitably lead to different reproduced sounds. Another variable is the system. As I said, I have ScanSpeak tweets that if I remember right are not 3 dB down until 40hz, have a moving mass of 25 grams, are crossed over with a single Musicap, and are driven by an amplifier that is rated pretty flat out to almost 100khz. These are the realms where digital's drawbacks are most noticeable, not in the low end. I know you want to write off those of us who claim to hear differences as self-flatterers with your pop-psychology snarlydwarf, but how about considering the possibility that people are actually different and hear differently? Could it be that SACD is 'dead' because the vast majority of people cannot hear the quality of sound produced, and therefore are understandably not going to pay for it? MP3s etc. are the Walmart of audio. I think folks of the iPod generation believe that small and compressed and quantity are good things, sleek, slick, slender, 80 gigs in a little white case. Just because something 'dies' in the market does not mean it has no value to some people, unless you are a market fundamentalist. And if I can try some of my own pop psychology, maybe people want to believe that they can buy some cheap computer speakers and that the music coming through them is all the same, because, after all, FLAC is FLAC. That leads me to one last thing. I have always only stated my opinion as such and never belittled anyone for theirs. I am clearly in the minority here and you guys have presented more than a hint of nastiness which unfortunately is cliche in online debates where folks seem to throw courtesy out the window because they are not face to face. As a new member here it really makes me wonder about the value of voicing a minority opinion on these forums, or posting at all for that matter. Enjoy your music, B -- rhizomaticon SB3 + DIY FreeNAS server w/SlimNAS + SqueezeCenter 7.0 Sony C555ES CD/SACD Creek 0BH-12 Musical Fidelity A3CR Hafler 500 4-way DIY transmission line towers with Scan-Speak Tweets, rest Peerless (Bi-Amped) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ rhizomaticon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15312 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=45839 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
