High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.


Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires
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Thanks for the clarification.  The only reason I mentioned it is that it would have meant that when replacing drivers I had them not correct.

I have used the battery testing method, but not with a tweeter.  Can you see anything move in or out on a soft dome tweeter to test polarity?
@jetter

Or maybe to say it in another way, the woofer and tweeter + and - are attached opposite to the signal from each other?

With 2-way speakers, this is usually the case. The reason has to do with time and crossover phase. It is considered far more important to have them work well through the crossover slope. Stereophile's speaker measurements do a great job of showing this. Look at figure 7 here, and the discussion right above it:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/monitor-audio-silver-8-loudspeaker-measurements

The measurements are typical for a good quality multi-way speaker, like the Monitor Audio line.

You can test any driver you can touch / see with a 1.5 to 9V battery. The + terminal should make the driver move towards the listener when the + of the battery is connected to it, with the negative pole attached to the - battery. 
This may be very difficult with an AMT or ribbon however.

From what I have seen, most speaker makers like to keep the bass in positive polarity, and then invert the other drivers to suit.

Vandersteen and Thiel go through extraordinary efforts to avoid doing this, so they are among the rare exceptions.

Best,

E
Can I add something to the mix here...and if the CD kbs rate is 1400, and Tidal is streaming full CD 1400kbs over CELL TOWERS to my phone, and through my Comcast cable to Mac's Tidal app...for $10/month why are we even talking about CDs?

Henceforth, there should be zero difference between whatever 1400kbs signal reaches an audiophile DAC to process. 
Not only that, but who's to say the CD in your collection from say 1995 wasn't engineering junk? HUGE difference between re-remasters in Return to Forever - Romantic Warrior, Zappa's One Size Fits All, or any obscure George Duke material. Tidal would have the latest work no doubt. It's the ONLY streamer that offers 1400 to date