"hearing the difference". Well there's lots of stuff I'm pretty sure I can hear the difference on. Like different speaker cables. Moving my speakers a foot or so. Using a totally different DAC.
I am yet to be convinced that I heard any difference whatsoever by changing any digital-only components, however. Using a DVD player to play CDs sounds exactly the same as using my squeezebox to play flac rips of those CDs when both are outputting data to the same DAC. I can't tell the difference between flac and wav, but I can tell the difference between flac and 320kb mp3 (for some recordings, not all). Most stuff in the analogue domain does sound slightly different, imho. But different doesn't equate to better. I'm fine with a pursuit of lower distortion, but that can only come from changing electronics, generally. The rest (cables et al) just modifies, subtlely, the frequency and phase biases of the system and yes it will sound superficially different, but not BETTER in objective terms. On the other hand, "more pleasing" is a purely subjective measure and it's fine for people to acknowledge they prefer some types of colouration over others, and "different" is the same as "better" for most people. At least in the short term. Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk ------------------------------------------------------------------------ drmatt's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=59498 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=105775 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
