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In Reply to: RE: Conversations end quick when you invent language & terms posted by Tony Lauck on April 06, 2014 at 11:56:56
Definitions really don't evolve that much. They can improve, by further excluding the possibiity of other things.
You make some good points. But, as with the clock, there are players that have no master clock, but clocks built into the DAC(s).
Being precise about engineering details has nothing to do about whether something is a DAC or not. "Immune to jitter" is a laudable goal: but has nothing to do with being a DAC or not. But it has something to do with being a good DAC. There is nothing complicated at all about the definition of a DAC. It either converts the digital signal to analog, - or it does not. How good it does this, or where the Master clock is located, has nothing to do with it. DACs were around a while before computer transports.
If developers are having issues with computer transports to their, (or a), external DACs, then they have issues with the computer as a different kind of transport. Or, the type of "older" DACs that were optmized for motorized disc spinning transports, have to be modified to accept the different kind of digital signal that comes from a PC. This is the reality that we've seen from Wavelength, Ayre, etc. DACs sounded GREAT (better) before designers/people used them with computers.
Blaming the DAC for a noisy mainboard, power supply, hard drives, bus, etc. is misplaced blame.
We talk about all of this stuff in a context. That context, IMO, should include different experiences that will help us develop a better reference. Getting a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives, only helps. If you have listened to a 6 box Wadia disc transport with separate DACs, (for example), you will have the ability to make comparisons between a fully optimized computer based transport and DAC. Especially if you take away the Wadia disc spinner and plug your PC in.
Computers are commercial products too. And those products have never been optimized for audio. So therefore it is up to us. Since DACs have been a part of excellent audio playback for years before PCs, it stands to reason, that we cannot cavalierly place blame on the DAC as being the stop-gap to good sound. This is especially true given the validity of point to point wiring in the high end. The experience from manufacturers, and consumers has been, (rightly), to tweak the computer to the point where it is no longer one: making it even more of a "transport." No matter the quality of the DAC, Pure Music is still going to sound different than Amarra.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
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I mostly agree with what you said. As to the computer creating noise in the motherboard and affecting the DAC, it might also affect the preamp and amplifier. One can consider this possibility by running the computer while playing analog source material and seeing if there is an adverse effect. One can also try various combinations of how these effects might get coupled, e.g. signal cables out of the computer, power cables (if one has some long extension cords that can go to other circuits), etc...
Ordinarily, the signals on the motherboard are supposed to remain inside the computer and not appear on the outside. We know that this is not the case, as can be easily seen by using a battery powered portable AM radio. This is another useful diagnostic tool that can be used to trace down these effects. I also know that these signals vary according to what the computer does, e.g. the frequency of interference alters according to the loop timing (e.g. as controlled by buffer sizes). In decades gone by people used to play music on AM radios by running special software that timed these loops.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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