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In Reply to: RE: Why does a ten year old NOS DAC sound so good? posted by knewton on May 31, 2014 at 13:44:18
to explain why it sounds better. This DAC from AN however still used an Analog filter. Still it's close enough for this discussion.
It was a well done review.
Follow Ups:
Yes, the reviewer highlights some of the well known technical differences between NOS and OS. However, drawing conclusions about how those technical differences alter the subjective character of the sound amounts to mere supposition.Some believe that linear phase digital SINC filter pre-ringing is the reason for the difference in sound character between NOS and OS, while others believe that it is because OS magnifies the affect of conversion jitter, while yet others believe that it's due to the presence of ultrasonic alias images with NOS. I've even read an theory which holds that NOS provides additional, though unintended, dithering to the the D/A unit. Many theories, but no proven conclusions, to my knowledge.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 06/03/14
I suppose that's true of most things in audio. Trying to prove that A is better than B is a difficult task when you can put 20 engineers in a room and say here is $20,000 build me what you think is the best sounding loudspeaker and you get 20 completely different products. ESL, Active, Ribbon, line array, open baffle, T-Line etc etc etc.
At some point virtually all of them (that bother to listen not just read graphs) will "make a call" on how the thing sounds and if the superior sound comes from something detrimental to the measured result then a decision is made. At Audio Note the decision is made on the sound. Many companies may make the decision based on a future soundstage or Stereophile review measurements and or which one makes them the most profit margin. Knowing that good measurements is the only way to get a class A designation = more sales they may opt for the better graph over what they actually hear.
I suppose we're left with blind level matched preference based tests. Stick 30 classically trained musicians in a room and see how many choose the NOS versus the "jitter to zero at all costs" units. But even this doesn;t prove much - if it is 16/14 or even 29/1 there is still the chance you'd agree with the 1.
Having recorded professional musicians for over 20 years they are notorious to have very different ideas as to what is good sound. After all they are used to the sound behind there instrument or from within the orchestra. As an audio engineer I usually took a musicians comments about sound with a grain of salt unless he was paying the bill. Heifits once told an engineer I don't care what I sound like but I better be louder than the orchestra.
Alan
My late musician wife refused to help me audition amplifiers some years ago when I had several on loan for in-house evaluation. She said that she could sometimes hear differences, but didn't care. She told me that she was listening to what the musicians were thinking while playing, not the sound that came out of my speakers. (I know she did listen attentively; she once memorized an entire Schubert sonata by listening to an LP that I played twice.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
As other musicians may also attest, I recognise this description so well - listening to what musicians were 'thinking'. Very, very few systems seem capable of suggesting this, no matter how esoteric they sound.
The last system that gave me a sense of this was a complete 47 Labs system. Another, was a non-descript Marantz SACD surround-sound system set up by Ken Ishiwata himself at a UK hi-fi show with some very modest speakers. Still another was one set up by Kevin Scott (such that everyone was compelled to stand and clap at the end of a CD performance). And these still stand out.
My present systems often fool me into thinking the instruments are there. But rarely the musicians themselves, and their intent.
big j.
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
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