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Fact is that a proper DAC will play 24 bit and 16 bit padded to 24 bit and plain 16 bit at the same level, for example my AudioGN and AudioAlchemy DAC's have the same volume level whether the Hiface is the transport or any other product is the transport. Thats what a good DAC does. When you throw asynch upsampling (scrambling) in the mix instead of proper oversampling, who knows what kind of volume differences will manifest. The interface between the digital receiver and the upsampler or oversampling filter has to be set up just right to handle all bit depths, I know I have set these up myself and it is not easy. Budget DAC's sometimes don't get it perfect, I've seen it.
I guess what I am saying is the Hiface isn't meant for everyone, you must have a decent DAC and amplifier for it to be worth the trouble and even then the Hiface should be modded. If you own a DACMajic or other budget DAC stick with a budget transport, really the very last thing you upgrade is the transport otherwise its just a painful worthless upgrade.
I hear you Regal, and I'm not questioning what you say, but I have 3 DACS, up and running, none of which I would classify as budget DACs, with three different categories of amps, that I also wouldn't call budget amps and the HiFace plays louder in all of them, just they way it was reported in the Legato review I linked to. And it can't be discounted that in the Legato review, that the HiFace was noted to play louder enough (than the Legato), that they were talking about it.... and this with a 5K Berkley Alpha DAC. Then there was the post by Gordon Rankin. Was that complete BS or was there something to what he said, because I would sure like to believe that he wasn't BSing the forum with pseudo-science? In addition, the same "playing louder" was also mentioned by Shahrose and Digger, who also don't' have budget amps or DACs either, so I find it quite confusing when I try to understand the technicality of what's going on.
On another note, I dragged out the HiFace and connected it to my Stello DAC which has defeatable upampling. As I toggled back and forth between upsampling and bypass I could tell that you were absolutely right about upsampling being a bottle neck. There is no question that upsampling seems to neutralize (for lack of a better word) what ever benefits the stock HiFace has to offer and curiously, the upsampling mode made the sound slightly quieter, or more mellow and uniform, which is the opposite of the way it usually works. But in general, the sound was still on the treble tilted side of neutral and the tone seemed off on the pianos because of it.
I also know that you feel the treble tilt that I'm experiencing with the HF is because I'm used to listening to low level jitter, but never the less, it's as present as "the playing louder" phenomena and I'm hard pressed to say that one isn't caused by, or is the effect of, the other. And regarding what I'm used to listening to, I listened to Nate's 150lb Menace rig at one of the NY meets and it sounded exceptionally good, so I think I know good when I hear it, it's just that I don't think I'm hearing good when I use the unmodded HiFace.
It's troubling that the stock HiFace seems to do better with my NOS Constantine and Stello (with upsampling off) than it does with the North Star which was specifically purchased for the usb needy, secondary, laptop rig.
Now that I've covered all the things you don't agree with,
what's your take on the small clock - large clock issue. Do you think the small clock is sonically inferior to the large clock or do you think, as some have said, that there is no sonic difference between the two?
USG