Yorkshire Mouth,
the reaction to your initial post was 'as expected'. I take issue with your start point. When the Japanese first presented their direct drive decks to the world at the beginning of the 70s' most of the West (Germany excepted) ruthlessly and in many cases racially reacted to these totally superior turntables. The Japanese had started by asking - what is the function of a t/t - to rotate at precise speeds and to operate silently or as close to. So their teams of engineers stripped away all the preconceived mentality and literally started from ground zero. More than 50 years later present day t/ts have not advanced one iota in engineering terms/precise speed control or silent or near silent operation.
You started with DACS why? surely the place to start is ground zero. What is the most important part of a house - not what kind of windows/decoration/kitchen bla bla bla. The most important part of a house if you want to achieve a long lasting structure is the part you cannot see - the sub-strata the house is to be built on and secondly the foundations. If you don't take account of the sub strata and how you create the foundations then you may well find out as many across Europe have this year that your expensive house has serious structural problems. Houses are built across the world using crap outdated materials and methodology. Raft foundations would have taken care of structural problems because of very dry/ very wet seasons. Temperature control using thermally efficient materials would mean far less heating/cooling would be needed. Using fire proof material would have meant the devastation of property in Australia, the US, Europe couldn't have happened. It's no good building thermally efficient housing, commercial property if you don't deal with 'sick building syndrome' caused by there being no 'air change systems' designed in from the planning stage.
psychoacoustics - what a stupid place to start. Start at the beginning - electronically produced music systems all require electricity to function yes? How often have I heard the futile, negative comments about the electricity supply - so it's not clean, stable, or supplied at the correct voltage. Isn't this where you start. Isn't this the foundation on which to create an optimal system. Ah but it's s not sexy, no but it is essential if you want to optimize your listening experience and for your equipment to operate at it's maximum potential.
Then there are the connectors - RCA/XLR etc. when were these developed - some pre WW11 are they optimum? no, not at all. How does a musical signal travel from one piece of equipment to another. What is the optimum material to use that will interfere the least with this A-B travel. To waste time and money on dealing with these issues so that a bat can optimise it's hearing capabilities is irrational but not at the level that humans can hear. Once you start investigating these issues you realise very quickly the so called scientific gurus/know it alls' pay no attention to these issues what so ever but crap in/crap out applies.
I don't think that universities are the place where this research should take place, it's technical colleges that should be used. Yes funding is, like it or not an important point that many have raised and yes it's not in the interests of companies selling $1k + power cables to fund this research. PCBs are these the best way to transport electronic signals, or as they are constructed. Are they used and in their present form because this is 'convenient and cheap'.
The best form of dielectric is air - is this true, then just look at what kinds of dielectric are used - convenience/cost being the only considerations. Maybe there is a technical college somewhere that has a head of dept. with an open mind to set their students/post grad students a project to set about designing connectors that interfere as little as possible with the weak musical information passing through. that using a certain type of fluorocarbon tubing made a difference. That designing in air as part of the design made a difference that can actually be heard. Blind testing yes but a waste of time until these primary questions have been asked and effectively answered. To produce any digital equipment that operates far beyond the hearing capability of bipeds is just plain stupid. How much equipment is made where heat dissipation is an after thought if at all. White papers were written in the 1950s about the effect excessive heat had on longevity and function of components. Some idiot on diyaudio made a statement that mosfets sounded better when operating when hot. He never did an experiment with mosfets operating using a cooling method - so how did he know what he stated was a fact.
Sadly there is so much arrogant 'received wisdom' that with examination turns out to be pure b/s. It really should be a case of accept nothing that cannot be repeatedly proven.
