a): the general sense of musicality (something subjective of course)
b) better low, tighter, medium more lively, as well as high (which do not bother)
Of course, all this may be due to the dac (Ayon skylla ii), but they all sounded with same dac, so the conclusion is valid.
Interesting. My own experience is that you really can hear a small difference in some circumstances, even with digital signals between different digital transports into a dac.
Really good digital transport give this impression , for me at least:
1. A soundstage thats slightly more wide, with more space between the instruments so each instruments has a clear, defined place in the stereo mix. With many instruments playing at the same time, you can hear each instrument more clearly. This is the difference I can hear with my Genelec 8340 with digital input, and using two different USB-spdif bridges with a MAC computer using Apple lossless.
2. Slightly cleaner treble , subjecticaly somewhat higher in level compared to a less good digital transport.
3. A slightly more dynamic sound
I guess that all of this is very dependent on the dac thats used.
A bad digital transport ( with bad SRC, no galvanic isolation, bad clocking, ) can on the other hand make so that different dacs sound about the same, meaning that a really good sounding dac is limited soundwise by a bad digital transport.
I have recently done a test in longterm listening with three units used as digital preamps to the digital input of my Genelecs . 1 . Yamaha wxc 50 digital out , spdif , pre amp mode . AirPlay from iPhone with Apple Music lossless. 2. Sky song - a chinese USB bridge with xu208, lt1963...
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On topic again:
This lindemann streamer shows high level of noise in some of amirms measurements, does this show up in a somewhat positive way for the listener when listening to music ? A softer sound perhaps ?