Be careful about NOS (Non OverSampling ) dac's they are based on the somewhat flawed principle that oversampling is not good and they often don't have any analog filter at all ? bizarre .
This produces residual hf noise > sampling frequency thats goes unfiltered to your system . On cd this will be >22kHz . So they are bound to sound "different" in most cases . In many cases this noise get "naturally filtered" by the rest of your system, but i bet some amps are bound to not like this. And this probably cause inter-modulation in the treble units of your speakers or other nasties as this might trigger the resonance peaks in our ever so popular metal dome treble units. A saw por Dan Lavry (Lavry DAC's) bewilderd post at head-fi ? trying to explain the kind of very nasty analog filter you would need in a NOS dac, not actually getting that many NOS dac's don't have any fillters :-/ that would be an engineering mistake that no EE would do in an actual product if he was sane. Many of these goes with outdated DA converters from yesteryear too . (the Dutch design in previous post seems to use modern chips as it do 24/96) NOS dac's increasing popularity with the fringe's of audiophiledom should serve as a warning. These people caught in the endless "upgrade" cycle, finally finds something that sounds "different" not at all as all other DAC's (that probably are designed to reproduce the incoming signal faithfully and would be very similar to each other if they where any good). If NOS was the solution everyone would do it. However this specimen offers way better SN ratio than the Touch if it s true ? Somewhat weird spec of -125dB an 0.04% THD this suggest that it's measured with 24/96 and that thd is above the noise floor ? such low noise often goes with lower thd ?, where thd would be with 16/44.1 regarding the NOS design ? NOS dac's is the kind of design that actually would sound better if you upsampled 16/44.1 to 24/96 on the server ;) for obvious reasons. (won't work on a 16/44.1 only DAC thou). This seems to a part of the ongiong trend to go back to really bad and previously abandoned technical solutions as switchmode power-amps ? Atver note that the Touch has a digital volume control keep it at 100% and then use your preamps volume . This is interesting anyway have never heard harbeth speakers ? In my system the Touch as DAC is to smooth soft and undetailed, my Meridian offers the resolution and precision one would expect in a high end system . Would be interesting see what you finally get . Popular among these forum members is Lavry and Benchmark . You could have some synergy wit an Ayre DAC as you got the rest of their kit. I would love to audition such things as Weis or DCS . NAIM ? I'm not sure , most naim things I've heard do "sound good" but they sound obviusly NAIM. So they got a house sound that they sell on their devotees. Migth bee fun , but is this hifi really ? -- Mnyb -------------------------------------------------------------------- Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 MeridianG98DH and assorted amps SiriuS, Classe' Primare and Dynadio speakers, Contour 4 Contour Center, and Contour 1.3SE rear ch. Rel Stadium 3 sub. Bedroom/Office: Boom Kitchen: SB3 + powered Fostex PM0.4 Misc use: Radio (with battery) PLEASE FIX BUG 112 http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=112 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=83976 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list Touch@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
