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In Reply to: RE: December Stereophile - Allnic D-5000 DHT posted by rick_m on November 24, 2014 at 09:01:42
Great post. Of course, saying "measuring the wrong things" has tons of past context/baggage associated with it and should be interpreted in that context. I was not referring to broad and general utility of measurements but to the matter at hand; measuring DAC's. There are thirty or so DAC's that JA has given straight-A report cards to and maybe five that he has given gifted-child status to, and not one of them can render digital music perfectly fatigue-free and "natural" to those of us who are sensitive to digital artifacts and dislike digital sound. The Benchmark DAC's are a great example of what gets my goat. They measure quite well and yet it seems that the majority of buyers who drink JA's Koolaid buy the product for the report card and then discover that there is nothing to love when the rubber hits the road. Just once, I would like to see a review in which the measurements are beyond reproach but the reviewer says, "this product left me cold and ambivalent, look elsewhere". We see these kinds of assessements occasionally with solid state amps-Bryston comes to mind.
Follow Ups:
Just to tack on a few more thoughts as to my own post, show me a DAC-and there are a lot of 'em-that sports a wall wart and/or switching power supply and an op-amp-only or skimpy output stage and I can pretty much predict (reliably IMHO), that boring sound will be coming out no matter how well the thing measures. There are only a finite number of off-the--shelf processors being made and only a finite number of implementations and far too many manufacturers who encase the same basic products in different cases with cost-cutting where it is most needed-the power supplies and the output stages. I will take a DAC that features a linear power supply and a robust top flight pre-amp worthy output stage bookending a DAC circuit that has been designed and tested by ear first and test-bench second any day. And have with my Abbingdon.
The after-market powersupply business is pretty large.
Jim Tavegia
"those of us who are sensitive to digital artifacts and dislike digital sound"
That's a tricky one allright. Without a live source at hand how the heck do you sift out analog "sweetening" from digital "destruction"?
Since nothing's perfect I just go with what I like which, overall, is digital. But it's a complex decision which includes factors beyond just SQ such as reliability and convenience and ease of backup. I don't think there IS a "digital sound" or an "analog sound", it's really quite a bit more complex than that and towards the limits both can suck or thrill, depending... But analog can never match digital for long-term reliability and there is no fundamental limit to how good digital can get.
I guess we could get performers out of the loop and just play MIDI files... Would that be digital, analog or live?
Regards, Rick
"But analog can never match digital for long-term reliability and there is no fundamental limit to how good digital can get."
Until your hard drive fails and your cheap plastic laminated over aluminum seedies oxidize. I have records from my high school days (forty years ago) that still play fine and sound great. Long-term reliability? Doesn't that concept assume compatibility? Redbook, SACD, PCM, bitstream, DSD, DXD, and there is no telling what the flavor of the five-year-period will be ten years from now, and during all that time past, present, and future, there are no issues with setting diamond to groove and converting physical motion to electrical signal in exact reverse fashion to my and your loudspeaker's conversion of electrical signal to physical motion.
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