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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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In Reply to: Re: Is there any logic to the claim of better dynamics... posted by saltyflies on January 25, 2006 at 13:08:57:
You can't remove the noise once it's been introduced (unless it's done digitally and even then it's only a bandaid). Some active preamps may have improved on early volume controled CD players that weren't buffered but in all likelihood many "improvements" that people claim are nothing more that pleasing additive (or more likely subtractive) colorations.
I believe that the improvements that people hear when adding a preamp to the DAC1 are an illusion. More importanly they completely defy logic and engineering. While there may be some truth to the claim that the "direct" signal path has less noise (by virtue of the trace lenghts and locations) the noise/distortion introduced by adding an active preamp and an extra set of cables would almost certainly swamp the gains. Personally I believe I get the best of both worlds by going "direct" and using the 24 bit digital volume control in my upstream Tact.(effectively 20 bits since the Benchmark is the limiting factor). I do believe that the Dac1 might benefit from a better power supply but that would improve the situation before the damage is done (very different from the claim that a preamp can "fix" damage or "improve" on an already compromised signal).Mistaking the introduction of coloration or distortion for "improvement" is not all that uncommon. For instance, some preamps give the impression of improved imaging when all they are doing is adding phase distortion. The image seems larger and more holographic but if one actually tries to pinpoint individual instruments it quickly becomes apparent that it is an illusion. People who don't understand the fundamentals of science and engineering are easily sucked into believing in the "voodoo" aspect of audio. Worse still, they often mistake what they like for improvements in accuracy.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Is there any logic to the claim of better dynamics... - gdg 01/26/0619:13:40 01/26/06 (1)
- Guilty as charged, sir.... - Tom 15:17:05 01/27/06 (0)
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