Is Digital Audio Transmission Analog? [video]

[voodooless]

We always ask audiophiles to test their ears. Maybe we should put ASR members to test too. https://www.klippel.de/listeningtest/ Is there a point to worry about -80db distortion if I can't hear -80db in distortion listening tests? If you can hear -80db distortion, I would like to know.

It's not just distortion that is poor with these products, it's also the SNR. No, I'm not too bothered about distortion being audible. I'm bothered by the lack of engineering excellence.

For example, I was able to hear the polling rate of my mouse or hear a high pitched noise when my gpu is working hard while MiniDSP 2x4 was connected to my PC. This is not the case with Motu M2 I am using right now.

That's just pure luck sometimes. These people were not so lucky with their M2 configuration... So, yes, galvanic isolation may help prevent ground loops, but a cheap USB isolator can fix that if needed, even on a €$ 99 DAC, that is as audibly transparent as any other.

 

[audio_tony]

The goal of the galvanic isolation is basically to cut off the noise coming from the source, PC for example.

The goal of galvanic isolation is to prevent ground loops, and not quite as your explanation above.

Most good quality CD players from the 1980's had a small transformer on the coaxial output for this very purpose, although as most CD players were double insulated (and as such had no ground connection) ground loops were typically not an issue, although the CD player could still have a path to ground via the RCA interconnects for example (if the amp was earthed).

Some DACs also had an input transformer although those were not very common.