Theta Dreams

Viggen - OK, now I think I understand why there's no Theta in your rig (or your refrigerator): 1] Gyros don't have hummus (made from chick-peas) on them, they have tahini (made from sesame seeds), and 2] 'humus' is decayed organic matter that has turned to earth, so I surely hope my Gryo has none of that on it. (A proper Gyro is sliced fresh from the rotisserie while you watch [never order a 'Gyro' from a place without the rotisserie in plain view - they may not have one at all, and that's not a good thing], with lettuce, onion, tomato, tahini, and crumbled feta on top, served on a soft pita, with maybe a hot pepper and an olive or two on the side. Order with fries and a Coke.) Once you firmly grasp these finer points of Greek junk food, maybe there'll be a new DAC in your future and you can sleep easier... (Either that, or you've been eating yours too close to bedtime ;^)

Z-man, honestly, how do you expect me to sleep easier after reading your scrumptious description of proper gyro making? I am going to raid your refrigerator and steal your DAC.

KR: Just read your review, I guess you liked it (the DAC that is, not the sandwich :-)

I had been hoping to find something in the article addressing Theta's shunning of the fashionable practice of 'upsampling' (whether it's really just a terminology or an actual technology).

They prefer "oversampling,' which the Gen VIII certainly does.

KR: Obviously. I can understand your desire to remain terse on such subjects here, but it would have been interesting to see some examination in the magazine of Theta's position (not that they're the only one) on this matter vis-a-vis the bulk of the rest of the industry. Maybe there's too much at stake, I don't know, but it seems to me that similar sorts of controversies have been taken up within Stereophile reviews in the past. JA in particular has, I believe, written a few seemingly doubtful comments regarding the genuiness of 'upsampling' as a distinct technique or advance. And it can't be denied that at least one other regular contributor has prominently trumpeted the concept as a panacea.

Theta, on their website, seem to finesse the question a slight bit - even though they clearly don't support the terminology - by focusing on outboard 'upsamplers' and their alleged propensity to increase jitter. They don't mention the popularity of one-box players said to incorporate 'upsampling' technology, but then again they're not in the one-box market at the moment, for better or worse. They also skip over the random dither issue and the escalation of bit-depth numbers that get tossed around along with increased sampling rates.

After reading through Theta's website material, I don't really have much of an idea what exactly is new about the Gen. VIII relative to the Gen. V in the digital domain. And I wonder if we should expect any trickle-down to a lower-priced processor, updates to the models below the Generation such as my own DSPro Basic IIIa, or an all-in-one player (CD or universal). But I am generally sympathetic to Theta's position on the upsampling controversy, even though my own experience with the matter can hardly be described as comprehensive.