ASR created a following of minions who like their opinions to be formed for them by someone else. Amir’s tests and measurements are questionable as he strives to “debunk” the high end “myths” and that’s how he gets his subcribers/audience.
In most cases no listening tests are done outside of an occasional comparison using headphones connected to his “reference “ $1000 DAC (I question the validity of this as well) and it’s very predictable what the outcome of each of his reviews is going to be.
As for the power supply size, I’m no EE, but from my experience implementation is key. I don’t think you can generalize this into one definitive answer. I’ve owned components with switch-mode power supply, wall wart adapters that sounded better than the same type component with toroidal power supply. Just my $0.02
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@tuberist Send it to Amir and find out exactly how badly you got screwed with this DAC. You could’ve just bought a $99 Chinese reference DAC that measures perfectly. Also, don’t forget to dig into that storage bin to pull some basic audio cables that came with your vcr 30 years ago. They’re just as good as high end cables. All you gotta do is just peel that yellow video cable off the RCA L/R and your all set! |
Even if you do a comparison between two DACs--one with a huge power supply and one without, how do you attribute any difference in sound, if there is any, to the power supplies when everything else is different? The entire design and implementation matters. It really comes down to the ASR measurement-is-everything approach vs. subjective listening. I can think of nothing better for showing how little measurement really tells one about a DAC than going to an Audio Note dealer and listening to something like a DAC 5 (or any of their lesser DACs). The Audio Note DACs measure so poorly, deliver waveforms that are almost totally unrecognizable from sine waves, that they should not be able to produce any music at all. Do the audition and tell me if that is what you hear. |
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