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RE: Please Tony....

You missed the point. Previous measurements by many people showed that delta sigma DACs performed as well or better than other types such as ladder DACs. That was done by the usual spectral tests with 1 kHz tones, etc... One sees these charts on the spec sheets for just about all DAC chips. Many people, pretty much all non-audiophiles, found that delta-sigma DACs sounded as good or better than ladder DACS. But there were audiophiles who could hear problems that didn't match the measurements. It was necessary to come up with new measurements, which they did. With the new measurements it became clearer what was happening and they modified their designs accordingly. The result was better measured performance with the new measurements and better sound to critical audiophile listeners. So long as they were like most of the other DAC designers and believed that any problems were so small as to be inaudible they could not progress. It took a believe in the unmeasurable differences heard by audiophiles to make two advances: better measurement technology and a better measuring and sounding product.

I believe this talk, by the way, because I'd already figured out what these new measurements needed to be when I was playing around with some software that emulated delta-sigma modulators. What I didn't know was how to fix these problems and I wasn't motivated to spend the huge amount of work needed to do so as this was just a casual interest on my part. I did study the published literature and concluded that any designers that did know what they were doing were keeping their knowledge under wraps.

Audiophiles who believe measurements tell all are less likely to configure a good sounding system. Many brainwash themselves into believing that certain components are perfect and certain conditions are inaudible. In the end, these people inevitably end up with systems that sound inferior to those who work with a more open mind. They may not know it, and their audiophile friends may be tactful and not tell them that their system sucks.
Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

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