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

mahjister,

To say that "imaging" in headphones is all in your head, would be completely accurate. There are many imaging cues that your auditory system has for localization that simply do not exist in headphones. That makes the rest of your assertions about imaging open to "interpretation".

Now, I am not saying You shouldn't like your NOS DAC. If it brings you audio nirvana great, stick with it.  I will even accept your Perception that the NOS DAC creates a 3-d holographic image.

What I won't accept is that the image it creates is accurate (or more accurate), or even that the sound coming out is a more accurate representation of the original.  A lightly filtered NOS DAC, as are being promoted today, create sounds that were not in the recording. There is no other way to put it. They create sounds that were not in the recording. Those sounds tend to create an "airy" feel that some will interpret as "3-d holographic imaging", while others will interpret it as "crap". Frequency range of hearing will have an impact on this.  mahjister, If you like it, does it matter why you like it?

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" ….:)

I’ve said this before, gentle readers, but I’ll say it again. By the time the signal gets out of the transport and goes to the DAC it’s TOO LATE. The damage has already been done! And it can never recover. Sadly, the Reed Solomon Error Correction Codes are NOT TOO GOOD for scattered CD laser light 💡 interference, seismic vibration interference, vibration produced by the CD transport and the self-inflicted vibration and flutter of the CD itself whilst spinning. 💿

atdavid

I dont believe that ANY reconstruction will be a total accurate simulation of the " original"... All engineering link in the audio recording chain is about trade-off and choices....But you judge too hastily and swiftly and make an implicit equation between the "holographic imaging" for some old guy educated ears, that must be only " crap" for young educated brain...But for my pleasure all that is of no avail because I enjoy tremendously my "illusion"... My best to you ...

Most music in the last several decades was recorded with DSD ADCs, then converted to PCM for mixing and mastering. Conversion from DSD(Delta-Sigma) to PCM and back is a mathematical process and if done with enough mathematical precision introduces no noise, losses, or distortion within the limits of useful audio, i.e. will be  bit perfect to 24 bits.

DSD is a different story since DSS native conversion is different than PCM and basically it's again more straightforward than delta-sigma PCM conversion. So DA converters with direct DSD DA conversion path (no conversion to PCM prior to DA) can benefit in sound since DSD conversion doesn't require output filter at all, so no ringing as well. However typical cheap DAC converts DSD to PCM, then processes DA as with ony other PCM signal.

Well one thing we can be 100% sure of is that GK will at some point make a post that is totally irrelevant to the topic at hand.

geoffkait18,240 posts11-14-2019 11:05amI’ve said this before, gentle readers, but I’ll say it again. By the time the signal gets out of the transport and goes to the DAC it’s TOO LATE. The damage has already been done! And it can never recover. Sadly, the Reed Solomon Error Correction Codes are NOT TOO GOOD for scattered CD laser light 💡 interference, seismic vibration interference, vibration produced by the CD transport and the self-inflicted vibration and flutter of the CD itself whilst spinning. 💿