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Clocks vibrate. Coupled items vibrate together. Everything is coupled.

Consider that a DAC contains a clock and the clock contains a piece of quartz that movies, i.e. it vibrates. According to the laws of physics the timing of the clock will be affected by external vibration. And this external vibration will modulate the audio output by the DAC, as can be deduced from what DACs do or by looking into the inner workings of a particular DAC. It is possible to measure these effects. A good experimental physicist armed with a governmental budget would be able to do this and produce quantifiable measurements of how much vibration effects the output of a DAC. Come to think of it a clever hobbyist could probably do the same at the cost of a week's work and a few thousands of dollars worth of apparatus.

However, even if there is no effect on the output of a DAC (e.g. because the critical parts such as the quartz crystal have been thoroughly isolated from vibration) changing the mounting of the DAC in the listening room may still affect the sound. The most obvious way is that the new shelf changed the room acoustics. Another possibility is the disturbance of cable connections during the process of changing the shelf. I'm sure that any potential Nobel laureate could come up with a half a dozen other reasons. A good experimental design would need to consider all of these possibilities and rule them out.

Those damn "bullet" resistors may also be affecting the sound, because their power supplies consume different amounts of power according to their resistive load and these power supplies may pollute the power wiring in the room. This can change the sound in a way that some listeners my mistake for more "resolving". Indeed the sound may be more resolving, but what is being resolved may be the defects in the audiophile's gear and not any sounds produced by a musician.

Tony Lauck

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

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