Guermantes
Senior Member
You can make the claim that all well-functioning DACs sound similar, so how else would you rank them other than subjectively?
Take a $100 DAC and put it in a nice enclosure, boom, you just made a $6000 PS Audio DAC equivalent. Sure it sounds good, but why pay $5900 more just for looks?
Yes, indeed, it seems logical. But I don't think logic will reconcile the objective vs subjective perspectives.
Music produces affect and we want everything involved in (re)producing music to heighten our experience of it. I think, subjectively, we conflate the emotional nature of listening to music with the qualities of the equipment we use. If we have better equipment, then we can experience more emotion. Music = affect and equipment ≤ max affect.
The language surrounding affect and emotion is different to that surrounding audio engineering. Just look at any manufacturer's copy regarding their equipment and you see language appealing to the emotional experience of listening to music. Think of all the equipment reviewers who talk about pace, rhythm and timing -- words that are musically and also physiologically descriptive (see entrainment).
The description from the PS Audio website includes this:
Imagine going to a recording studio and listening to a master tape of any recording made. This is the experience DirectStream provides its owners who enjoy a renewed sense of enjoyment and discovery when listening to everything in their library: CD’s, downloads, DSD.
This is about experiencing something authentic, about discovering something previously unattainable or hidden. We have easy access to countless high quality reproductions of the Mona Lisa but the crowds still flock to the Louvre every day to have that personal experience in the presence of the original. I did that and was somewhat disappointed by the reality, just as I'm sure many would be disappointed with the actual experience of listening to master tapes in a studio.No-one can engineer a perfect DAC but nevertheless we long for that authentic, perfect listening experience even though the object of our longing is probably a personal fiction. And we project that longing onto the equipment we buy or lust after.
Then there those people who have completely confused the love of music with the love of gear . . .