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AVGuide hates usb - Page 6

post #76 of 77
9/21/09 at 7:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phelonious Ponk View Post
Yes, I would expect them to sound very much alike. In fact, I would expect them to be indistinguishable in blind listening.

P
I'm not sure why you would expect this...

Even assuming identical bit-perfect data is going in the front end (with no stray bits bouncing back), and even assuming that different DAC chips perform roughly equivalently (a proposition which many here would dispute vigorously), different DAC's have very different analog output stages...and accordingly can sound very different from one another. DAC's are no different in this regard than any other digital source (CD players/sound cards/daps).

This brings me full circle to my prior question (post 52) - how do you know that these other DAC's measure equivalently to the DAC1? What is your methodology for measuring audible differences? What specific factors are being measured?
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post #77 of 77
9/21/09 at 8:31pm
Quote:
I'm not sure why you would expect this...
I would expect this if and when their engineering goals are sufficiently low noise and distortion and reasonably flat frequency response throughout the audible human range. These goals are simply not difficult or expensive to attain these days, so if the engineering and implementation are competent, it is a perfectly reasonable expectation.

Quote:
different DAC's have very different analog output stages...and accordingly can sound very different from one another.
They can, but they shouldn't. And very often they don't.

Quote:
DAC's are no different in this regard than any other digital source (CD players/sound cards/daps).
Well, we agree on that much. But don't get me wrong. I'm not of the "everything sounds the same" crowd. There is enough incompetent design and implementation out there, and plenty of "creative" design, audiophile specialist companies departing from the core objective of accuracy for various, often misguided reasons (Benchmark, however, is not on either list). Then there are the things that really make a significant difference -- headroom, transducers, active speaker systems...

Quote:
This brings me full circle to my prior question (post 52) - how do you know that these other DAC's measure equivalently to the DAC1?
Many DACs have been independently measured and reviewed. Google is your friend.

P
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