And that means? What means "detect"? And what means it changes the signal in an audible way? How? Did they measured it after the detection session? I can't imangine that. Metronome/clicking signals – what? Generated by?
These horror news scare me. What should I do now? Sold my Oppo because the Swedish Audio Society are able to detect the Oppo Sonica in a blind test? Buy the Yamaha? Maybe is because of the ESS chips? I don't know.
Sorry, I really didn’t mean to generate any audiophile neurosis...
As I said, I thought you were still considering which one to buy, otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything. My personal view is that the chance that you (or me) would notice it if somebody switched out the oppo with the Yamaha without you knowing is zero. As far as I know few people listen to metronome clicks for prolonged periods of time.
How these Swedes do it, is basically to compare the output from the most transparent and best-measuring dac they know of (can’t remember which one, only that it was hideously expensive) with the output from the device under test. If they are able to detect any differences between the two, they assume that the device under test adds something to the signal. If not, they can at least conclude that they were not able to detect any difference on this occasion between the device under test and their super-duper excellent dac.
So you can see it this way: compared with a super-expensive dac, the oppo wasn’t as good at converting metronome clicking from digital to analog without adding anything at all (simple rhythmic signals like that, or simple pink noise, is usually better for detecting subtle differences than music). But then again, many of the dacs they have tested have also been “detected”, and the Yamaha is one of the very few cheap ones which wasn’t detected at all. On music, they couldn’t notice any difference between the oppo and the other dac.
But again, sorry for bringing this up just after you bought the oppo! It seems to me like an excellent dac.