I’m here to engage with other D90 Discrete users and share real-world experiences with this specific unit. That's why I'm in this specific thread rather than all over the forum. I’m looking for a dialogue with people who actually use the gear, not a lecture on signal theory.
What reviewers? What credibility do they have, as opposed to any other random on the internet who "believes their ears"? They are shills for the same industry selling you these gadgets.
Everything that could account for "easy to hear" differences? Yes, absolutely, I've never seen the faintest shred of evidence to the contrary nor even a plausible hypothesis. A good ADC, like a good DAC, is orders of magnitude more "resolving" than any transducer.
You need to spend some time reading and understanding the works Prof Dianna Deutsch.
SoundWeird has a point and I have often wondered this myself - how do you measure soundstage width, depth? Is the science of measuring complete? It seems some think so...I'm not so sure it is definitive, there is always room for improvement...no? So please give the guy some space - he is just asking for subjective opinions.
Interesting. So let me ask you this - Is there any signal leakage between left and right channels in a DAC? I think this is called interchannel crosstalk. Low crosstalk usually helps maintain good stereo imaging. Or is crosstalk in the realm of the preamp/amp? Just trying to find where that would originate. What about phase and timing coherance? Phase inconsistences can smear transients and collapse spatial cues. Again where would such artifacts originate?
Yes, crosstalk exists in all devices in the audio chain. It's usually irrelevant in line level parts like DACs and most preamps. Amir does not measure it for DACs, but does so for preamps. You won't hear crosstalk at -100 dB. Even at -80, I would be sceptical, especially if it's outside of the most sensitive region of hearing.
As explained, it affects all devices but relevant levels of crosstalk can usually only be found in power amplifiers. I would assume that the reason is the much higher voltage found in amps, which causes the electromagnetic field in the PCB tracks and cables to extent much further.
Why would phase changes "smear transients" or "affect spatial cues"? If you select a minimum phase filter on a DAC, it sounds the same as the corresponding linear phase one. However, the phase/frequency relationships of both filters look quite different.
Folks also believe that there is an audible difference if they switch power cables. People are subjective and believe the most ridiculous shit. Doesn't make it true.
Oh very true folks believe all kinds of stuff. But it is also true that folks perceive sound differently, what one hears doesn't make it universally true for all. You have a measured effect, we know it is a pure but folks will receive and interpret that sound differently. That's all I'm saying.
Nothing audio note is competently engineered
you might have picked just the one off the few where there is possibility to sound different, but not for a good reason.
But there is no difference to perceive if the signal is identical. That's the point of precise measurements.
A tube DAC is not "competently engineered" in the sense that wording is commonly used on this forum. The job of any DAC is to translate digital signals into the analog domain as precise as possible. If it doesn't do that, it's not a good DAC. For DACs, "well engineered" is usually equivalent to "audibly transparent" around ASR. And if two DACs measure audibly transparent, they by definition will sound the same.
OK fair enough...that makes sense.
That only stands if they use the full output, not attenuated at all.
