The Law of Diminishing Digital Returns

I had a $400(retail) Marantz 5-disc changer in my system for 7 years. Wanted to upgrade. Bought a modified Music Hall CD-25. This was a significant step up. CD-25 was over $800. Then I bought the Bel Canto DAC2 and it was again a significant improvement over modded CD-25. DAC2 is $1350. From here on, anything I auditioned never resulted in the level of improvement I was able to achieve with stepping up from $400 5-disc changer to $800+ modded CD-25 to $1350 DAC2. There are definitely difference between $200 cd player and a good $3500 player. And these differences should not be subtle. I personally never heard a good $200 cd player.

phaelon-i agree with your example as 'art' , but the retrival of 1's amd zeros has been a flawed 'hi end' media from the beginning. after all, the format was developed as a replacement for the audio cassette not the lp. upon its introduction, the cd entered a marketplace where lp's were less than 20% of worldwide sales. the technology as a reference was(and is) a distant second to analogue. aside from the usual surface noise anomalies, vinyl is still in a league of its own. the two driving reasons for the marketing of the cd were portability and profits. the ability to sell music libraries all over again.

phaelon-i agree with your example as 'art' , but the retrival of 1's amd zeros has been a flawed 'hi end' media from the beginning. after all, the format was developed as a replacement for the audio cassette not the lp. upon its introduction, the cd entered a marketplace where lp's were less than 20% of worldwide sales. the technology as a reference was(and is) a distant second to analogue. aside from the usual surface noise anomalies, vinyl is still in a league of its own. the two driving reasons for the marketing of the cd were portability and profits. the ability to sell music libraries all over again. the spiraling aftermarket for hi end cd hardware depends on tin ears to survive at lease another few yearsnumber51

Hi Jaybo,
It wasn't my intention to suggest that digital is superior to anologue or even to broach the subject. I was trying to address the difficulty some people have trying to justify the proportionally high cost of sliding up a few points on one of those dubious "pecententage improvement" scales.

Early on, Hollywood identified a quality, some actors possessed, that seperated them from the many other talented actors who were more than capable of meeting the demands of a script. They simply called this quality "it".

As a measureable percentage, what does Clint Eastwood bring to a film that another competent actor cannot if truth to the script is used as the measure. Now, we all understand why an actor like Eastwood demands a much higher fee than other actors who could skillfully play the part; so if we can equate that script to an lp/cd, then we can understand that we are not really paying a lot more for a few percentage points but rather the emotional involvement associated with those points.

Mattcone- I hope I'm addressing the meat of the issue you had in mind.

What are "tin ears" missing?

In the early days of CD, expensive high order analog filters were necessary. Nowadays, oversampling allows for very simple and cheap analog filters to do the job.

In practive this means that even the cheapest DAC's have THD + Noise of less than 0.002%. An expensive high quality pro studio grade 24 bit DAC might get you down to THD + Noise of less than 0.0007% (roughly one third less noise and distortion).

Since high-end speakers typically have a THD of 0.3% at best, an improvment in the third decimal place on a DAC seems rather fruitless.

All DAC's, even cheap ones, have distortion numbers that are hundreds of times less than compared to a speaker or to what people can typically detect in blind tests. Perhaps they only test people with "tin ears".

For those who seek audible improvement from the third decimal place of one percent of distortion and noise, my hat is off to you; you must have amazing hearing! Do you find even the very best speakers disappointing?