As some people seem to take me for a science ignoring and trolling audiophile, I’d like to steer the focus back strictly to the engineering side of performance optimization. My goal is to minimize budget while maximizing results, and that requires a deep dive into what actually defines transparency.
I come from the era of cassette decks and dbx noise reduction (copying vinyl 1:1 on cromo tapes). Back then, we understood that transparency was largely a matter of time-domain accuracy. dbx was a 2:1 linear companding system; it was pure analog math where the time constant of the RMS detector and the VCA's reaction speed were everything. If the timing was off, you’d hear 'breathing' or 'pumping.' It was a straightforward relationship between dynamics and time.
Fast forward to today, and we are incredibly spoiled by the steady-state performance of budget gear like Fosi. However, I feel that in our current quest for the highest SINAD, we might be overlooking the 'modern' equivalent of those timing errors.
While dbx dealt with millisecond-scale artifacts, modern high-performance op-amps and DACs deal with micro- or nanosecond-scale issues. This is why I am exploring parameters likesettling time and phase margin in the feedback loop. Just like a slow detector in a dbx unit could ruin a transient, a sub-optimal settling time in an op-amp can cause ringing and overshoot that a static 1kHz FFT simply won't capture.
I’m currently going to test the JFET-based OPA2604 specifically to see how its architecture handles the complex, non-periodic signals of actual music compared to the standard bipolar chips. I’m not looking for 'magic'; I’m looking to understand if the time-domain precision we fought for in the analog days has been fully accounted for in the digital SINAD-race, or if there's still room for optimization through better understanding of dynamic load behavior. Without airy cables or rhodium plated contacts that are technically even less conductive than the compromise that is gold, trading electrical performance for nothing more than chemical inertness.
I come from the era of cassette decks and dbx noise reduction (copying vinyl 1:1 on cromo tapes). Back then, we understood that transparency was largely a matter of time-domain accuracy. dbx was a 2:1 linear companding system; it was pure analog math where the time constant of the RMS detector and the VCA's reaction speed were everything. If the timing was off, you’d hear 'breathing' or 'pumping.' It was a straightforward relationship between dynamics and time.
Fast forward to today, and we are incredibly spoiled by the steady-state performance of budget gear like Fosi. However, I feel that in our current quest for the highest SINAD, we might be overlooking the 'modern' equivalent of those timing errors.
While dbx dealt with millisecond-scale artifacts, modern high-performance op-amps and DACs deal with micro- or nanosecond-scale issues. This is why I am exploring parameters likesettling time and phase margin in the feedback loop. Just like a slow detector in a dbx unit could ruin a transient, a sub-optimal settling time in an op-amp can cause ringing and overshoot that a static 1kHz FFT simply won't capture.
I’m currently going to test the JFET-based OPA2604 specifically to see how its architecture handles the complex, non-periodic signals of actual music compared to the standard bipolar chips. I’m not looking for 'magic'; I’m looking to understand if the time-domain precision we fought for in the analog days has been fully accounted for in the digital SINAD-race, or if there's still room for optimization through better understanding of dynamic load behavior. Without airy cables or rhodium plated contacts that are technically even less conductive than the compromise that is gold, trading electrical performance for nothing more than chemical inertness.
Your attempt to ensnare me in your diabolical 'Catch-22' scheme won't work until you actually generate a result. 
