The gentleman who sent the DAVE (and M Scaler) to ASR bought one of the Topping DACs, and now says he prefers it in his (2-channel) system to the DAVE. Of course, it's one man's subjective opinion, and without knowing more about his sonic preferences, I don't know how much weight to assign it. I do know he owns and loves a Shangri-la headphone, which means he's not completely deaf.
I didn't do a further zoomed out one unfortunately. Usually the response of a filter is described by the -3dB point so I have that test set to a fairly close zoom to clearly show that, as it'd be harder to see when zoomed further
I think if a lot of us honestly did some blind testing, we'd be shocked at the results. The other night, I was enjoying my setup and listening to music upsampled via HQPlayer. For hours, I sat there enjoying, fascinated that I was hearing details I've missed before. I was a believer in HQPlayer! Until I went to stop the music and saw that it was never engaged at all and I was simply listening out of the TT2 direct over toslink. Ooops yea, really woke me up to how much we make up in our head when we expect to hear something vs not knowing what to expect.The gentleman who sent the DAVE (and M Scaler) to ASR bought one of the Topping DACs, and now claims he prefers it in his (2-channel) system to the DAVE. Of course, it's one man's subjective opinion, and without knowing more about his sonic preferences, I don't know how much weight to assign it. I do know he owns and loves a Shangri-la headphone, which means he's not completely deaf.
I have seen that, but was it a smooth filter of 3db/octave ? Say the brickwall filter is not a smooth one.I didn't do a further zoomed out one unfortunately. Usually the response of a filter is described by the -3dB point so I have that test set to a fairly close zoom to clearly show that, as it'd be harder to see when zoomed further
https://goldensound.audio/2022/03/14/chord-dave-measurements-with-mscaler/
Yep, had the same exact experience with expensive interconnects about twenty years ago. I had an SACD player with two sets of RCA outputs, so I could A/B them vs. some cheaper interconnects I'd been using for awhile (don't remember either brand at this point) by simply remotely switching inputs on my ARC Reference 1 preamp. I was completely convinced that the system sounded WAY better with the expensive interconnects. One day, I was doing the comparison and having the usual subjective preference, but then discovered that I'd mixed up which interconnect was on which preamp input. Needless to say, it was a moment of great self-enlightenment. We truly don't understand or appreciate how much processing goes on between our eardrums and what we think we're hearing, and how unreliable it can be. That's (one reason) why *I* use measurements as a sanity check. Everyone's mileage may vary, of course...
One thing that is very evident; there's a lot of ego tied to this hobby for some. I don't expect many to challenge themselves and do proper blind testing for the fear that they may discover they've been wrong all along. That would shatter how amazing they think their own hearing ability is. What I described and what you're describing, these stories are frequent occurrences that continue to remind me to keep an open mind and not become dogmatic about what I think I hear.
We all had similar moments. For me, excellent bench performance is merely a first step - it represents quality engineering, manufacturing and quality control. Assuming the gear has excellent performance, then there is the listening test to determine if the sound reproduction fits your tastes and preferences. This eliminates 90% (I made this number up obviously) of the high-end imposters (both gear and reviewers) on the market.
e from day one. 
canjam is tons of fun I have been to the ones in NYC numerous times...good fun but a lousy place to listen to components...
Should have gone to the one in Chicago - I was able to spend solid 30-45min with each gear (I ran out of time eventually).
