...are there such things as rolled off treble, boosted bass, and added reverb...???...because that is what I think I am hearing...
...the most noticable thing was the bass seemed a bit boomy on a couple of songs I have been listening to a lot...some times a bit of echo...
...can they build that into a circut...???...
One can do a lot in DSP and even in an analog circuit. This, however, would be visible in the frequency response or distortion numbers. And I mean very obvious in measurements as in dB's for frequency response and distortion products exceeding 0.1%.
Lets have a look.
Single-end output | | |
| USB input | S/PDIF input/BT |
Output Level | 2Vrms 0dBFS | 2Vrms 0dBFS |
THD+N | 0.0003% | 0.0003% |
SNR | >116dB | >116dB |
| A-Weighted | A-Weighted |
Freq. Response | ±0.014dB | ±0.006dB |
Distortion ... 0.0003% that's way below audible thresholds. It does not say how it is measured (at which frequency) nor I.M. distortion is given.
Unlikely to hit 0.1% though.
My best guess would be: distortion won't do this.
Adding 'echo' or 'reverb' can not be done to specific instruments. It would always be present with all recordings. I have not seen any DACs doing or adding this.
That said ...unless it has built in DSP with that functionality, which in such case, would always have menus with control options.
So unlikely.
No we come to tonal balance (boosted bass, rolled off treble). This would mean the frequency response would have to be not 'flat' from 20Hz to 18kHz or so. The frequency response could be given like: 20Hz - 2kHz (+/- 3dB).
The specs say: ±0.014dB (for USB) and for some reason ±0.006dB (for SPDIF) which points to different paths in signal processing ?
Also they don't mention the cutoff points. Lets assume they pick 100Hz to 10kHz. Even in that case there won't suddenly be rolled-off treble and 20Hz won't be down much at all.
So specs say this DAC does not add a 'sound signature'.
Of course we won't know for sure until someone independent verifies the measurements. They could be giving false info. Not likely but could.