How important is the source?

 

Bizarre.

I wasn't expecting or asking you to David, I was giving you my view of why I think vinyl is a niche product for a minority of users.  At over £20 and often more for new releases, it's going to stay that way.  

Unfortunately, I agree RS. I think for the price, a CD copy should be included in the purchase!

I seem to have tied myself up in knots here , all I meant, was that an understanding of how something works - while not being the same as hands on experience of it working - can be a valid counter to claims that it worked better than it should, or maybe, could 

 

Yeah, but I don't think many people on this forum (you and me included) actually do understand how a DAC or streamer works... In fact, we would be repeating what we've read from others.

Agreed, But those that apparently (allegedly??) do know have written about it, and there's nothing wrong with us reporting what they've said, and the results of blind tests, no more than there's anything wrong with reporting what a person has heard.

Yay. It's good to see I haven't missed much

I know the topic is DAC and not CDP, but

...maybe the lens doesn't track correctly which means it might be reading the wrong groove. Or the disc has a slight wobble which means some notches are not detected correctly. Or the motor speed doesn't exactly match the word output speed which can lead to buffer glitches.

A CD is not a multi-track device. You can't lose the vocalist because there is no separate vocal track. There aren't even separate tracks for the left and right stereo channel, they are interleaved in the same track. If you want to know how a large read error sounds, then put the CDP on a tray and give it a quick spin while playing. You probably won't hear anything because a CDP mutes its output when it detects read errors, but better turn the volume down before trying.

I can think of a reason why finer details are lost first (mind, I have no practical experience designing these): most DACs use an external active network (i.e. a tree-structure of resistors and capacitors) to maintain the reference voltages for each bit. The least-significant bits carry the lowest voltage, so use the smallest capacitors and resistors. However, outputting a signal drains the capacitors, and the smallest capacitors will be drained faster than the other bits. When the capacitor is drained, the reference voltage drops*.

* of course you can use smaller resistors to make the capacitors recharge faster, but if you change only one resistor your network becomes unbalanced, so then you must change many others to compensate. And smaller resistor values means more process variance, which means you must exert greater care hand-picking matching components.

 

Nothing wrong with it, although I repeat it is preferable to state sources of information.

 

idc's collection of blind tests etc is very useful for sure 

 

One must always use a critical mind as to the possible motivations of those who put any information out there. For example, someone selling an active speaker with a built in dac and preamp has an interest in saying (i) active speakers are best, (ii) all dacs sound the same, (iii) all amplification sounds the same as long it is sufficiently powerful. It would be a fallacy (that many fall into) to say that means the information is wrong, but it pays to be cautious for obvious reasons.

 

In many ways the most interesting sources of information are those with no obvious bias. Which is why I always find oldric's and lindsay's posts interesting, even tho I don't necessarily agree with them.

 

Anyway, have you got that rug yet? There seems to be consensus about that at least 

I couldn't agree more, in fact when I read virtually anything about Hifi the first thing I think of is what are the motives of the person who said/wrote it, do they have a vested interest, does what they say clash with what unbiased people say, or blind tests, or users opinions etc etc. 

This is the logic I speak of..

 

The corollary of this is that if someone is saying something you disagree with, maybe even that you think is ridiculous, but they have no vested interest, there really is no point giving them a hard time.

 

Peace and happiness to you all, I'm off to bed 

I'll stick up a pic of my new rug tmw, I was keeping it a secret 

The soundstage is about ten times bigger 

Max, I think you would struggle to find anyone who can truly be called unbiased.  Users have some element of bias in favour of the equipment they own, dealers have bias in favour of their preferred brands, and all manufacturers are biased in favour of the equipment they make.