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RE: Newbie questions

Posted by soundchekk on April 5, 2012 at 03:29:30:
One more:
Did anybody ever read about a DAC review, where the
immunity respectively rejection on incoming distortions has been evaluated.
E.g. Does an audiophile player application such as Cplay makes a difference YES/NO. How much of a difference does it make?
I don't think so. I've never seen such as thing.
Is it done done on purpose??
Fact is, the manufacturers of High-End gear recommend to improve your source to make their products look good or look/sound better.

It's usually much easier and cheaper for them to recommend something like that instead of improving their electronics.
The reviewers and later customers usually follow that advise, without questioning it.

######################################################################
The key problem by tweaking the transport side is:
Not any different source/transport setup will produce the same sound quality on the same DAC.
And don't believe that you'll ever be finished with an awful and expensive transport tweaking!!! It'll go on forever.
######################################################################

The funny thing is that lower level products gain much more by using a
well done Transport (HW and SW), then high-end & high-priced products.
It could easily be that a 250$ DAC product + well done transport or reclocker sounds better than a 1k+ DAC hooked up to a basic transport and would still be much cheaper than the 1k+ device.
Those high-end & high-price manufacturers recommend to use best transport setups to avoid such a disaster.
They need to keep at least a little distance to those low cost solutions.
The difference between low and high quality gear would usually be much more evident if both sides were fed by low quality transports.
But obviously the reality is a different one.

So. Better watch out, when reading the next glorifying review of a new DAC device. What they refer to is typcally a combination of DAC & Transport. You never really know how well the DAC itself performs.
To me the key criteria for choosing my next device is how immune it is on incoming distortions and how well it handles/refreshes that information.

And Beware: Some manufacturers even claim immunity. From my SBT project feedback I learned that even those devices that are supposedly immune respond to changes on the transport side.

My goal is to end up hooking up any device ( PC/SB Touch/iPad/iPhone/Android device/ you name it) to my DAC/Full Digital Amp ending up with the same sound quality. (Assumption: bit transparent sample transfers).
Enjoy.
Cheers