We might need to clarify definition of transparency but I’ll try to convey my understanding of it (or how or when I refer to it).
- when reproduced detail retrieval is closest to the real thing. Overall picture of performance but including faintest of micro-details. Detail that is always there (recording) but can appear slacken, harder to distinguish or make up on lesser gear.
Now, your understanding or use of this word might be different. It could be more helpful if we agreed on the term.
Don’t know if everything we hear can be measured or not but I don’t want to get into hypotheticals.
I’ll be happy to try entertain this question after term “transparency” is a bit more clearer (if I am using it incorrectly, just let me know what you mean by it).
I’m pretty sure I’ve use those words correctly in response to several posts. And it seems that I was attacked for asking a simple question (I think you are the only one who answered).
I certainly could not care less about this dac or manufacturer.
But perhaps some very bright people who posted their reservations (and mockery) in this thread could try to provide a real service. Test that DAC, evaluate its topologies, features, compare it to “transparency” champion of your choice and look like a hero if it fails. You can even try removing some caps and other “maybe unnecessary” (I think that’s what one of posters suggested or asked or mocked) components from its circuitry and make it really great.
Sounds like some of these guys are good enough to build digital reproduction masterpieces. I would say give it a shot. I would love to see that wonder.
I'd like to respond to your comment, because I think this is a good place to maybe bridge the gap of the issue a bit.
The way you define "transparent" is accurate as far as music reproduction is concerned IMO. Now, The actual definition is: "having the property of transmitting
light (sound) without appreciable scattering so that
bodies lying beyond (source material) are (is) seen (heard) clearly ". So in a way, your definition is a subjective one, where the actual definition is objective. You gave us YOUR definition as opposed to THE definition. If we can make that distinction, then the rest of the matter can be discussed on even ground. Anything more on transparency would be something like "more or less transparent". One thing to understand here: If you're hearing something more distinctly, that may not always mean more transparent, distortion can raise the volume of certain things.
Micro detail. The more transparent a component is, the more evenly represented the micro detail of the original source will sound. The way this is achieved in signal components is by lowering the noise floor so that the signal can pass through to the next component with as little added noise, so as to be "transparent" to the next component or to the ears. Lowering the noise floor leaves room for the hearing of the micro details in the quietest parts of the music, like the lingering hiss of a cymbal crash or the echo of a flute as it's sound bounces around the music hall. The noise floor of the latest DAC's is so low, it is beyond the threshold of human audibility.
The thing with the human threshold of hearing is: We might be able to hear, not the noise in a very low noise floor component, but the effect of a change in noise floor between components, even at these low thresholds. This is an area of some debate. Now, this is of course assuming that the component is passing signal through distortion-free (linear or flat).
The same can be said of "imaging", "soundstage", and "dynamics". It's all related to the distortion-free signal processing of a low noise floor component. We must also note here that certain harmonic distortions can actually increase the level of Micro detail, imaging, soundstage, or dynamics, but make no mistake, this is movement AWAY from transparency, even if the effect is audibly pleasing. I think a lot of our disagreements come from the fact we're not making this distinction in our discussions.
Can we measure everything we hear? Not only can we measure everything we hear, we can measure well beyond the ability of even the most golden-eared ones of us. All you need to do to be convinced, is look at an audio signal through a DAW. For example, in Pro Tools, you can take an audio signal and magnify it so much that you can see the frequency response of the tiniest bits of audio information! You can take, say, a second of music, magnify it so much that the slightest changes in equalization or effects will show up as huge changes to the frequency response, but you won't be able to hear them. That's powerful proof in favor of the ability to measure beyond what we can hear. Small changes to the sound envelope (attack, decay, sustain, and release), show up as big changes in frequency response, when the signal is visually magnified.
These are those micro details, and other qualities we discuss. As soon as you make changes to the original audio to "enhance" these qualities, that's distortion of the original signal, even if it makes the signal flatter. It's moving away from the original sound. This is another point of contention: Is the original audio the least distorted, even though it can be made more flat? It's a matter of perspective. Because technically, flattening the original signal is loss of the original signal's "originality" but it becomes a more manageable product. But if you think about it, studio mixing is there in part, to introduce distortion, to make the audio more pleasing to the ear. Is that transparency? I digress.
Sound REproduction should strive to move that signal through, as enhanced, distorted, or flattened as it was made in the studio (hopefully to the benefit of the sound), in as un-molested a way as possible. In sound REproduction, that is transparency. It is the opinion of this forum that components that transfer signal (especially DAC's), should be as transparent as possible. I agree. Mostly.
I'll be the first to admit, I like a little harmonic distortion with my music. I love the sound of tubes and horn speakers. But I want the components that deliver the signal to my distorted tubes and speakers to be as transparent as possible.
This is what I'm learning from places like this forum. It would be a shame to drive a wedge into what can be a bridge.
Some of the guys on this forum can be staunch defenders of the forum's tenets, and can sometimes alienate. I wish they wouldn't say: "I think you might be in the wrong place...".
