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RE: Wadia 581iSE, the best sounding SACD player I've heard but....

135.245.8.1

Could be a great player. The phrases such “this DAC is so much better than… ever most SACD cannot…” are often misleading and not correct.

A $10,000.00 could be better… but better than what?
Most orchestral instruments have far more rich harmonics than you can think of. The are way above 20kHz.


Instruments With Harmonics

Fig. Instrument SPL Harmonics Percentage
(dB) Visible To of Power
What Freq.? Above 20 kHz

1. Trumpet (Harmon mute) 96. >50 kHz 0.5
2. Trumpet (Harmon mute) 76. >80 " 2.
3. Trumpet (straight mute) 83. >85 " 0.7
4. French horn (bell up) 113. >90 " 0.03
5. French horn (mute) 99. >65 " 0.05
6. French horn 105. >55 " 0.1
7. Violin (double-stop) 87. >50 " 0.04
8. Violin (sul ponticello) 77. >35 " 0.02
9. Oboe 84. >40 " 0.01


Instruments Without Harmonics

Fig. Instrument SPL 10 dB Above Percentage
(dB) Bkgnd. to of Power
What Freq.? Above 20 kHz

10. Speech Sibilant 72. >40 kHz 1.7
11. Claves 104. >102 " 3.8
12. Rimshot 73. >90 " 6.
13. Crash Cymbal 108. >102 " 40.
14. Triangle 96. >90 " 1.
15. Keys jangling 71. >60 " 68.
16. Piano 111. >70 " 0.02

a 44/16 recording CD sample rate at 20 kHz is only few points though.
Throwing a few sample points into the wave from a $10,000 DAC does not make any difference. this is why you need a DSD recording to reach over 100KHz and over 120 dB dymanic. music waveform is very complex, to keep natureness of the sound you need keep those higher freq rich harmonics.
Truth is that it dose not matter how expensive of your DAC if you listen to a 16/44 CD.
It may fool you at a low listen level. Once turn up at > 110 dB level, you will hear that a good orginal DSD recording far far better and natural....

here is an analogy, a photo taken from 3.5 Mp camera can be enhanced by photoshop to 10 Mp. While comparing to a original photo taken by 10 Mp camera, it may fool you at 5x7 inch prints, but truth will be seen once they were blew up to 24 x 36 inch.

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