pablolie wrote: > Well, it *depends* on what you mean. I fully agree that a bit-perfect > digital signal doesn't get any better if you spend another $1k on > esoteric USB and Ethernet cabling. But then again, you can screw things > up even in the digital domain if you don't pay some attention to good > quality connections, and some attention to detail never hurts. Ask any > Data Center architect :-) > > And there is still the "A" in DAC that means not every DAC designed > around SABRE or the next coolest chipset sounds the same. How you route > the analog signal, how clean your power supply is... the analog basics > are still there. It doesn't matter if you've upsampled to 128bits and > 3.2GHz in the digital domain if you dirty up the analog back-end. > > So I agree with you statement if what you mean is that... never has it > been easier for an audiophile to get bit-perfect source material and > feed it into the analog rest of the chain. Which begins within the DAC > itself. > > Personally I wouldn't set up a Transporter in my current listening > environment even if I scored it for free. I don't have the room (and I > am perfectly happy with what I have), but that said, anyone that happens > to like the Transporter and is willing to pay its going rate, hey, they > get a very good piece of gear; and value is in the eye of the beholder. > We all have our pockets of irrationality that make us a tag happier. :-D
What you said is pretty much in agreement with my intention. In the case of digital audio "players" (you will shortly see why players is in quotes) there appear to be two basic kinds: 1) the kind that simply act as a sort of receiver and pass the digital audio stream to an external DAC (all Squeezebox devices can function in this manner). 2) the kind with a built in DAC (again all Squeezebox devices can also function in this manner). Many of the newer digital audio players currently flooding the market from high end audio manufacturers fall into the first category and unless they are doing something to the digital audio stream other than passing through the digital audio stream unchanged to the DAC then they should ALL sound the same. Which brings us to the reason why I keep on stating that the high end audio world still clings to analog audio beliefs in the digital audio world. Since all these so called high end digital audio "players" are really only digital audio pass through devices, i.e. devices that can extract the digital audio data from USB drive, CD, SACD, DVD-Audio disc, a wi-fi or an Ethernet signal, etc. and pass it to an external DAC, and since by definition these devices should have no "sound" of their own then the only things justifying their high prices are build quality (like those front panels milled from a billet of solid aircraft grade aluminum), the quality of the manufacturer, (in the case of Bryston's 20 year transferable warranty), feature set (various connections, displays and supported formats) and useability. No magic and no voodoo involved and no difference in sound quality other then those duly reported in the subjective writing of the high end audio press, those faithful lackeys of the high end audio manufacturers. Living Rm: Transporter-SimAudio pre/power amps-Vandersteen 3A Sign. & sub Home Theater: Touch-Marantz HTR-Energy Veritas 2.1 & Linn sub Computer Rm: Touch-Headroom Desktop w/DAC-Aragon amp-Energy Veritas 2.1 & Energy sub Bedroom: Touch-HR Desktop w/DAC-Audio Refinement amp-Energy Veritas 2.0 Guest Rm: Duet-Sony soundbar Garage: SB3-JVC compact system Controls: iPeng; SB Controller; Moose & Muso Server: SBS on dedicated windows 7 computer w/2 Drobos 'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/jazzfann/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100948 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
