Can different CD *transports* sound different - when fed into the same DAC?

[voodooless]

The DAC is a different matter… but even here there’s a crucial piece of information that most people aren’t aware of: while no human has evolved who can hear beyond 24bit depth @48KHz, there is a physical issue with digital to analogue conversion that hasn’t yet been overcome by engineering. The long and short of it is that DACs function much better at higher sample rates, like 88.2K, 96KHz (and upwards into rapidly diminishing returns). So if you’re a practiced listener, who can discern a slight but noticeable difference between 96KHz audio and 48K audio, then that’s why. It’s not that your ears are picking up more frequencies or greater resolution; it’s just that DACs are not well optimised when running at 44.1KHz or 48KHz.

Hi, and welcome here! Looks like you’ll do mostly nicely here Except for the above. What mechanism makes a DAC work worse with 44.1 kHz vs 88.2 kHz? What is that “thing” that engineering hasn’t overcome yet?

 

[antcollinet]

there is a physical issue with digital to analogue conversion that hasn’t yet been overcome by engineering. The long and short of it is that DACs function much better at higher sample rates, like 88.2K, 96KHz (and upwards into rapidly diminishing returns). So if you’re a practiced listener, who can discern a slight but noticeable difference between 96KHz audio and 48K audio, then that’s why. It’s not that your ears are picking up more frequencies or greater resolution; it’s just that DACs are not well optimised when running at 44.1KHz or 48KHz

Citation needed.

EDIT : Ninjad by @voodooless