In Reply to: RE: CS4398: extreme opposite of the large tap length Chord DAC? posted by knewton on November 19, 2015 at 10:02:53:
There is no definition of "objectively perfect" that can be applied to a DAC. This is a technical characteristic of the format. The format can not fully capture the analog signal that was sent to the analog to digital converter. In the process, information is thrown away. Depending on the specific method of throwing away information different playback strategies (DAC filtering or lack thereof) may offer different approximations to the original. However, there is no way to choose between these approximations on an objective basis. Indeed, there are multiple dimensions to the distortions and different listeners may weigh the different dimensions differently.
I have played around with different filters on recording and playback and can confirm the interaction of these filters. The relationships involved can be explained theoretically, can be measured in the time and frequency domains, and can (on some recordings) be heard as differences in tonality, air, sound stage and imaging.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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Follow Ups
- RE: CS4398: extreme opposite of the large tap length Chord DAC? - Tony Lauck 11/21/1512:09:33 11/21/15 (3)
- RE: CS4398: extreme opposite of the large tap length Chord DAC? - knewton 15:55:19 11/21/15 (2)
- RE: CS4398: extreme opposite of the large tap length Chord DAC? - Tony Lauck 18:28:03 11/21/15 (1)
- RE: CS4398: extreme opposite of the large tap length Chord DAC? - fmak 22:03:32 11/26/15 (0)