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RE: If your...

"If the masters reside on tape as many albums do, and tape has a dynamic range of no more than say 70 to 80dB at best, and that tape is used to create 'high-res' digital files, what is the benefit of a DAC with 100dB+ dynamic range if the source material's range is significantly less?"


If the dynamic range of the DAC is limited by purely additive noise and the additive noise has the same spectrum as the tape noise, then, given that the tape noise was 20 dB louder, there would probably be no benefit to a DAC with such dynamic range, provided that the digital transfer used all of the available dynamic range of the digital media (give or take a few dB) and provided that no digital volume control was used. If one of these provisos does not apply then more dynamic range in the DAC would probably make a difference.

Personally, I could care less about purely additive white noise, so long as it is at a low enough level. The problem is that the DNR of the DAC may be limited for reasons other than additive analog noise. Even something as simple as TPDF dither does not result in purely additive noise, despite the lies Redbook apologists tell. So if the noise comes from any portion of the digital processing, then the music is likely to be distorted unless the designer really understands digital signal processing.

Perhaps the most significant reason for a low DNR in a DAC is that it can only be achieved with paranoid attention to detail on the part of the designer. However, if there are design reasons for the noise that have other benefits at the expense of benign noise, then such a DAC may be preferable, even though it measures poorly on DNR. Some DACs push their analog electronics to measure good and this leads to an unnecessarily harsh sound (even digital clipping) on loud portions of recordings. This is just one of many reasons to be distrustful of products that are designed to measure good, rather than sound good.


Tony Lauck

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


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  • RE: If your... - Tony Lauck 09/15/1409:47:12 09/15/14 (0)

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