How much do you need to spend to get digital to rival analog?

We are talking DACs here. There is no feedback on a Delta-Sigma DAC.

Delta-sigma conversion is based on a feedback, it’s how it works. In fact, feedback is described even in very words ’delta-sigma’.

Delta-sigma conversion

You can see with any delta-sigma conversion diagram there’s a feedback associated. While those are simple conversions, you can’t escape a feedback no matter how advanced or modern it is, because...at some point you’ll have to do a delta-sigma, you know? ;) you can’t escape LPF-ing too.

Even on an almost 900K system, I still feel there are compromises. For one thing, its not analog. also, I have never heard drums, cymbals and overall air sound right on any digital system. Unfortunately, sometimes you have no choice as some music is digital and was never releases in analog or (tape, record).

Whether it releases on analog or digital, most music in the last several decades was digital right up to the cutting machine.

Cymbals on LPs made from digitally made masters don’t sound right either, if you listen critically. I can go to a hifi show, listen to many analog systems, but on a typical record I usually can’t hear an ’analog sound’ out of the analog rig, With digitally made records it’s not what’s there.

On cassettes that are “digitally remastered” it seems that many of the sonic ills present on the CD are gone. Why is that? The cassette version is more lush, is more open sounding, more natural sounding, has more air, greater resolution and greater dynamic range. Why? It’s because the CD is more compressed and because of the limitations of CD playback I’ve been describing lo these past many months. You want some examples? OK, Kind of Blue, Country Joe and the Fish on Vanguard and AC/DC’s If You Want Blood You’ve Got It. Check it out!

I would say as it sounds in say an orchestra hall.

Again, we/you were talking DACs, and I have copied that "qualities" you have associated with "Feedback" below. None of these properties you have assigned to "Feedback" apply to a Delta-Sigma DAC. Anything that appears as feedback in a Delta-Sigma DAC is a bit-perfect, time-perfect mathematical process. It could all be calculated ahead of time and simply fed to the actual single bit DAC output (though usually 3-6 bits). A DSD signal can be technically be fed directly to a single bit DAC.
You can't escape low pass filtering in a NOS DAC either, though some seem to try, and older audiophiles with poor high frequency hearing seem to tolerate them and mistake aliased noise for "air" and "ambience".


A "typical" record today was recorded on digital gear, mixed and mastered on digital gear as well. That has been true for quite some time.

zalive17 posts11-14-2019 3:29am

We are talking DACs here. There is no feedback on a Delta-Sigma DAC.

Delta-sigma conversion is based on a feedback, it’s how it works. In fact, feedback is described even in very words ’delta-sigma’.

Delta-sigma conversion

And feedback is generally associated with corrections, approximations and messing with the time domain (as with the feedback you always correct with the time delay relative to the signal you're correcting with). This basically renders technical problems and various noise generated in the DA process which depends on the input sequence. Delta-sigma is from the very beginning on the path of constant improvement of the DA process...because it requires constant improvement, because of its imperfection.

Cymbals on LPs made from digitally made masters don’t sound right either, if you listen critically. I can go to a hifi show, listen to many analog systems, but on a typical record I usually can’t hear an ’analog sound’ out of the analog rig, With digitally made records it’s not what’s there.

I am now tremendously excited to be old, I understand now very well why my S.P.S NOS dac is so good....But wait guy, be happy too, you will be old sooner than you think …. : )


By the way I want to know if 3-d holographic imaging in headphones or speakers, and natural musical timbre instrument and voices rendering is also the results of very old age with this NOS dac of mine? Let me guess that your answer will be "probably" ….:)


«You can’t escape low pass filtering in a NOS DAC either, though some seem to try, and older audiophiles with poor high frequency hearing seem to tolerate them and mistake aliased noise for "air" and "ambience". » atdavid