Analog vs. digital

Yes they are a waste.

Engineers and scientists vastly more knowledgeable on this topic than them (or me) all call it a waste.

White paper in consumer audio are just marketing fluff. If they made a real difference they would publish measurements that show a clear improvement in end products. They don’t publish those measurements. Why is that?

Many DACs are already operating within a few db of their chip vendors theoretical limits. You think they are improving on that? Do you think you could hear a difference at those limits?

And if you believe it. Prove it with your ears. Should be easy .... Just proven can tell two servers apart .... No looking though.

You build servers commercially?  You implied that in your post. What company?

Done with the discussion of measurements vs sensory perception.

Neither of us build commercially, I'm a curious diy, have been long building my own general purpose computers, thought I'd give music server computer a try. Bang for the buck is off the charts with diy music servers, commercial servers all use off the shelf motherboards with optimized OS, really not much more than that to most of them. They don't render well, lucky if they have nice power supply. My present server is combo off the shelf/diy, I don't waste effort on rendering with it, so impact on sound quality much less than the servers doing rendering, the thing is vast majority of off the shelf servers pay no attention to rendering, yet they charge like they're doing mass amounts of R&D. These guys likely have the greatest profit margins in audio, along with the cable guys. So, you and I may have something in common when it comes to marketing hype. Difference is I don't observe market hype with at least some of the white papers I've read, in these cases the particular person writing the paper doesn't have a product to sell using the technical knowledge they're expanding on.

“Why in High End audio do differences of preference and taste have to result in potential conflict? …..Analogue for you, digital for me. Both are splendid options.”
@charles1dad

Well said, my sentiments exactly!

@sns Done with the discussion of measurements vs sensory perception.

Agreed!
This poor dead horse has been beaten countless times. Dismissing what you hear with an audio component is akin to buying video products and paying no heed to what you see on the screen. Irrational behavior.

Charles