Digital Front End: Critical Listening

I find the differences in digital front-ends to be significant but subtle. I can't tell much of a difference with A/B comparisons between most "hi-fi" digital components. But in extended listening the differences are huge. Digital is fatiguing in general. But I listen to digital exclusively. And for that reason I spent more money on my source than any other component in my system, including the speakers!

I tend to listen to music for extended periods, upwards of 3 hours at a time. With a low quality digital front end I never listen for that long. When I turn off the music after an hour, I get a momentary feeling of relief. It's like stepping out of a loud party into the bathroom. You think to yourself "ahhh... silence for a moment."

The better the digital front end, the less significant I find the effect of "digital fatigue." My advice would be to try keeping each setup in your system continuously for a week or two. Monitor how much time you actually spend listening to music with each one.

A personal note, there is a possibility that I am unusually sensitive to this. But I've been listening exclusively to digital for over a decade, and I was never into vinyl before that.

Hmm. Sjh32 it would seem a USB fed buffer (or IEEE1394 or similar async bus) would be the next logical step for the Levinson DAC, IMNSHO. A USB interface could, in theory, offer better performance for the same or less money. But it's all speculation until USB transports and DACs appear on the market.

what interconnects, digital interconnects and speaker cables are you using ?

mike

I have to admit, Aroc, that your suggestion is over my head. A USB fed buffer sounds like it uses a USB cable, but why that might be superior (bandwidth?), I can't figure out on my own. As with most of my hobby knowledge, I pick things up slowly over time, and that's what interests me in your post; I should probably have at least a conversational grasp of these subjects if I'm dropping over $4000 on digital gear (I love it when some bored looking saleperson tries to wow me with some marketing technobable and you just know they're full of shit,).
Is there a newletter or other publication for laymen that follows advances in digital audio, like Speakerbuilder was to DIY speaker building?

For analogue, my whole system is wired and connected with Audio Synthesis. Some of the RCA's(no balanced) are better than others but they're all at least "very good" according to the research I did when I bought the stuff. I also got a very good deal on most of it. I understand that varying cables can be used to fine tune a system but I don't think I'm there yet. First I need to get off my ass and build my DIY speaker which I finally got all the parts for but now need to design the crossover.