At the risk of inflaming opinion, I am happy to explain how I compared the systems. I would like to add that I was a EE 25 years ago and although time and technology have passed me by, I still have a healthy disregard for the 'I replaced the fuse in my mains plug with a nail and it tightened the bass up' sort of nonsense.
Having said that, while I subscribe to the 'all digital source sound the same' argument, I did some work on digital to analogue systems for the BBC (we had digital even then) and sample jitter was a big deal. It is just as important for the DAC to have the correct sample output voltage as it is to have the sample at the right time. The highest precision DAC is rubbish if clocked with a jittery clock. SPDIF has an embbeded clock which can be subject to jitter on recovery, so in principle a jittery digital source 'could' sound worse than a source with less jitter (all other things being equal). So back to the test. Same DAC (the Krell - 24bit Burr-Brown I believe) same length 75 ohm coax, teminated with Neutrik RCA connectors (which are not 75ohm) going to Meridian CD player and to SB3 or Duet. Believe I had everything software configurable set the same for the two inputs on the Krell. To my ears, no question the Meridian path was better. May have been imagining it - who knows? But the soudstage was stable, clear and open with the Meridian, and didn't seem as good with the Duet / SB3. Was this due to jitter? - I have no idea. But back to my question if anyone has suffered through all my yesterdays. The transporter has two SPDIF outputs and one balanced EBU output. The two SPDIF outputs are different (according to the manual) the RCA output is capacitor coupled, the BNC is transformer coupled. Both have a source impedence of 75ohms. Why do they differ? and which is the best to use? Thanks to all. -- Andy8421 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andy8421's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=16846 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=47046 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
