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Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

The sound comes from the DAC

The only thing coming from the computer is data. A good DAC won't be affected by the timing of this data. A bad one will. So, if you hear a difference between computers, or CD transports, or a monkey banging on keys to generate 1s and 0s to send to a DAC, blame the DAC. It really is that simple, but some people continue to cling to superstitions, it seems.

How this started:

Back in the old days of computer audio, most external DACs used the S/PDIF protocol for digital audio input, causing them to have a dependency on the timing of the incoming data. People soon realized that doing all kinds of silly things to their computer influenced the sound coming out of these DACs. To this day, people still believe which OS they use, which brand of computer, the "quality" of the USB cable between their computer and their DAC, the number of processes running in the background, whether or not the track is ready entirely into memory or streamed off of the storage device during playback, and the alignment of the sun and the moon and stars, all had dramatic effects of the quality of the sound coming from their S/PDIF DAC...and they are probably right.

But, those dark days are over now, for most of us, because we're using DACs that (should, if designed correctly...steer clear of manufacturers that claims all this stuff still matters!) have no dependency on the timing of incoming audio data. Kind of like a printer...it can deal with data coming in at different speeds without it effecting the quality of the printout it is creating. Or like a hard drive, which can record the data reliably onto the platter spinning at ridiculously high speeds regardless of whether or not the computer that sent the data is configured in the "correct" manner.

Some people cannot get their head out of the sand, however, and are still under the assumption that all those factors that affected their crappy S/PDIF DACs are still in play. Note that these people refuse to take part in any kind of scientific testing to prove these beliefs...they are just certain that everything under the sun (and perhaps the sun itself) affects what they are hearing. Fmak has made it clear on countless occasions that he belongs to this superstitious group of believers.




Edits: 04/09/12

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