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  1. manisandher

    Why was my thread closed?

    My stating that I believe I hear a difference between DACs (not between my modern DACs BTW), was just context-setting for explaining my motivation for starting the thread. It had no bearing on the thread itself, or on the results of the null test, which were proving interesting, IMO. The DAC...
  2. manisandher

    A More Useful Way of Measuring the Performance of DACs?

    I recently acquired a 13-year-old dCS Scarlatti CD transport, DAC, clock and upsampler. What seemed immediately apparent to me was how different it sounded to the two modern DACs I have here: an Okto dac8PRO and an RME ADI-2 Pro BE. I think I hear very subtle differences between these modern...
  3. manisandher

    Cheapish system with great SQ

    I've just put this cheapish system together for my 10 year-old, who's really getting into music (grade 5 piano, synth player with band at his school... loves Michael Jackson!): - iFi Zen Stream (to stream lossless from Roon, or directly from Qobuz) - SMSL DO200 DAC (volume control and source...
  4. manisandher

    Any similarities between F1 and audio?

    In a recent interview (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/61374774), Toto Wolff said this of the current Mercedes W13: "It is a car that is super-difficult to drive and on the edge of dipping in and out of the performance window - more out than in. And dissecting the data with a scalpel is...
  5. manisandher

    No access to amplifier forum?

    Any reason why https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?forums/amplifiers-phono-preamp-and-analog-audio-review.13/ is down? Mani.
  6. manisandher

    Setting up an active crossover using Roon

    Recently, quite a few people have asked me how I've gone about setting up active crossovers just using Roon alone. I thought I'd start a thread to discuss the process. I'm just going to dump a number of screenshots, which are hopefully fairly self-explanatory (if you know Roon, at least). We can...
  7. manisandher

    Could someone help me to think through my ABX result using Bayesian reasoning?

    Priors: 1. For many years, I'd been certain that I could hear clear differences between bit-identical playback means (e.g., different USB cables, streaming vs. local playback, different software players and their bit-identical settings, etc.) - something that has bugged me no end over the years...
  8. manisandher

    MOTU UltraLite-mk5 in fully active setup

    I thought some people here might be interested in how the MOTU UltraLite-mk5 performs as a multi-channel DAC in a fully active setup. Roon -> MOTU UltraLite-mk5 -> 6x Neurochrome 286 monos -> Impulse H2 speakers (British speakers from the '90s) All DSP done in Roon. I absolutely LOVE the...
  9. manisandher

    Analysis Plus Cables

    My recent look at my 'Truth' preamp, and a comment I received about the cables I used during my loopback tests, got me thinking about all the audio purchases I've made in the past. I'll admit that I've been taken in by BS marketing on more than one occasion, and made a whole bunch of mistakes...
  10. manisandher

    Software Players & Filters

    Background Many software players (and an increasing number of DACs) offer ‘leaky’ filters that are not optimized in the frequency domain. (Even pro companies like RME offer 'NOS filters’ in their DACs nowadays!) The rationale cited is that such ‘soft’/’smooth’/’slow’ filters are optimized in...
  11. manisandher

    RME ADI-2 Pro FS R vs. MOTU M2

    If you think digital sound was solved years ago, feel free to skip this thread... Following on from Amir's M4 review, I thought I'd share a couple of needle drops using my RME and MOTU: I know this'll sound sacrilegious to some/many/all here, but I've been trying to capture the sound of...
  12. manisandher

    NOS DAC in-band distortion

    Here's the output of my DAC running in 24/44.1 NOS mode (1kHz sine wave input): I understand that the out-of-band (>22.05kHz) distortion is created by imaging above the Nyquist frequency. What I don't understand is what's causing the in-band (<22.05kHz) distortion. Here's the NOS output up...
  13. manisandher

    Matrix Audio Element X - issue

    I thought I'd start a new thread documenting the issue I have with my new Element X (and hopefully its resolution), rather than corrupting the review thread any further. I was playing around with my newly-received X over the weekend, and noticed that all 7 internal filters sounded identical to...
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