ralphpnj wrote: > ...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.
totally and entirely agree about the digital domain. it is pretty resilient and tends to preserve bit perfection. that's how the interconnects were designed. the analog domain is fuzzy magic. listeners' preferences for the sweetly inaccurate and/or linearly accurate and/or coldly exposing are catered for. the best measured performance may not be the preferred one. the somewhat irrational choice may be the most satisfying one. etc. this is not a world of results by majority consent, or we'd be all listening out of Dre's Boost stuff off our phones (please kill me). ...pablo Server: Virtual Machine running Ubuntu 12.04 + LMS 7.7.3 on VMware Player System: SB Touch --optical->- Benchmark DAC2HGC --AnalysisPlus Oval Copper XLR->- Creek Destiny Power Amp --AnalysisPlus Black Mesh Oval->- KEF LS50 Other Rooms: 2x SB Boom; 1x SB Radio; 1x SB Classic-> MusicalFidelity M1PWR -> Totem DreamCatcher ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 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
