Not trying to argue, just politely putting forward a counterpoint.
Doesn’t audibly transparent mean that the analog output is absolute faithful to the digital input ?
No, based on my understanding, ASR's defintion of "audibly transparent" is that if you are put under a "well controlled" objective, level-matched, double-blind, ABX testing environment, you cannot hear any difference if I change any equipment on the signal path. In their mind, DACs fall in that equipment category. i.e. If two DACs are having good measurements (e.g. SINAD is better than certain dB, etc...), you won't tell if I change the DAC as they should sound the same to you. In other words (I think), they mean a DAC would sound the same no matter it costs you $100 or 10k as long as they are "measured as audibly transparent as defined above"
If two different DACs do that with different internal components, the analog signal from both audibly transparent DACs will be identical and therefore the sound out of the connected amplifier will be identical, isn’t that literally the meaning of audibly transparent.
With the definition of "audibly transparent" stated as above, my view is that "If two different DACs do that with different internal components, the analog signal from both audibly transparent (as defined above) DACs will NOT be identical"
Not being funny but it sounds like you are arguing essentially with the statement “two devices that sound the same will sound the same.”
No, I think you take "perfectly re-construction of the original analogy signal" as the definition for "audibly transparent" as a based for your statement. If that is the case, I agreed with you. However, it is NOT their defintion. With their defintion I stated earlier, what I really mean is that "two devices that sound (i.e. reconstruct music) differently will sound (as you hear) differently" but, with ASR's view point, "audio signal reconstructed by two different but audibly trasnparent (based on their definition) DACs should sound (as you hear) the same to you". They further comment that "if you really hear any difference, it must be your brain is fooling you or you use a poorly designed filter for your DAC" <=== this sound an unfalsible claim, one of the characteristics of Pseudoscience - Wikipedia.
Extending that further, if two amplifiers are also audibly transparent won’t they sound they, by definition of audibly transparent, also sound the same ? So any combination of audibly transparent DAC and amplifier will sound the same.
You are 100% correct but you have a dfferent defintion of "audibly transparent" than the one used by the people in ASR. Even with their defintion, based on their measurements alone, could it be enough to tell if two DACs are "audibly transparent"? i.e. Is good measurements values == "audibly transparent"? For me, my answer would be no. Actually they mis-used a well known term (Confirmation bias) in Psychology to support a lot of their pseudo science claims. I think a lot of people is already fooled by this mis-usage. Feel free to check if you know the term well too here ==> Do you see the same color? Why? (no-pseudo-science.blogspot.com)
I saw your visual comparisons. Isn’t that actually shooting down your own argument? You are literally showing how our senses can be fooled by other stimuli. In your examples it is vision that is fooled, in audio it is hearing that can be easily fooled or isn’t reliable. Our auditory system is an awful long way from infallible and isn’t a great judge if other stimuli are also introduced, that is just how we as humans function.
Yes and no.. I wanted to show that our hearing can be easily fooled too. BUT my main point is "For a simple reporting-type question like 'do you see the same color?', do I have to say 'I don't see any difference' in order to conform with their group beliefs". I believe that if you report what you experience (i.e. see), you would probably say "No, I see they are different". What if someone keep telling you that "you see the same color"? My other arguement is that "I see they are different even if they should be the same. What if they are indeed slightly different? How can you guarantee that your 'audibly transparent(?)' DACs would not reconstruct audio signal outputs that is slighlty different???" <=== not sure if you think it makes sense. Please feel free to comment further on my blog.
Have a look clearly but please stop here as I mentioned it was my bad that as it was off topic.
