Metrum Acoustics Octave - Page 4

 

So bring on (more) distortion. Audio is to be heard and not to be seen on a test bench otherwise we would be listening with our eyes.
 

 

Edited by gurus - 9/9/11 at 9:12am

I'd rather listen to the recording, not the DAC, but that's my preference.

Exactly and as a true audiophile I want to listen to the audio, not to the distortion. You want to be a distortionophile that's your choice but you don't get to call yourself an audiophile.

Please, don't come out with a bunch of BS about measurements or measuring audio.

G
Edited by gregorio - 9/9/11 at 9:21am

 

Obviously you missed the whole point!  And the sarcasm in it!

 

Edited by gurus - 9/9/11 at 9:59am

In that case, sorry, my bad!

G

My Octave is an excellent dac that sounds natural.  I can't hear anything I would construe as distortion so if it is there, it doesn't sound like it is and it communicates music to me from within my system.   That's all I ever wanted from it really.  It wouldn't change a thing about my opinion if it was powered by magic chicken bones and positive thought harvested from my brain as I sleep.

So I am  going to order one. Gregorio convinced me on that. 

 

Specially if Distortion = "depth, detail, nuance and resolution"   (SIC)

 

Since the Octave is probably an overkill for a computer rig I might just get the Quad - Octave's younger sibling.

If it's from that poster then we probably need to take his opinion with a grain of salt. In fact, we should take any raving opinion like that with a grain of salt... Who knows what he gonna say when a bigger, badder and better DAC comes along in the future? Will he quickly discard this DAC and rave about the new hip thing? 

What I actually said was "where measurements and a professionally trained and unbiased ear detect significant distortion, some audiophiles (and particularly audiophile reviewers) will instead hear "depth, detail, nuance and resolution"."

So what will happen with your new DAC is one of two things, either: 1. Your ear will remain untrained and biased, in which case you'll love your DAC forever or 2. Your ear will gradually become more educated and you will gradually become more disenchanted with all your DAC's distortions.

G

  So what exactly is distortion supposed to sound like?

That's a good question. And the right answer would be that it sounds like anything which shouldn't be there. Not much help. A distortion is any alteration in the shape of the waveform. There are many types of distortion: Amplitude distortion, phase distortion, frequency distortion, quantisation distortion and harmonic distortion. Each of these distortion types has at least one and sometimes many different effects on the sound we perceive. This means distortion could be anything from low level noise (hiss), to pops, spurious tones, soundstage problems, frequency imbalances, etc., etc. With listening experience and comparisons between different sound systems the ear becomes more educated.

G

Thanks. That's the only way to go. I am a strong believer in good clean power for audio equipment and more so in DAC's. Power supply is one of the key components that gets overlooked more often than not and that is a bad compromise.