Theta Dreams

I must say that no information beyond that which you can see at the website was supplied to me in the accompanying materials so I cannot offer more. My understanding is that earlier "generations" will be upgradeable and that the technology will be and is trickling down into other products such as the Compli player/transport and the Theta pre/pro controllers.

Personally, I am less concerned with Theta's implementation of up/oversampling in a product where it is undefeatable and, therefore, inherent in the product's overall performance. Had it been defeatable, it would have been more of an issue.

I agree with Theta's implied position that one decoding technique - the one they feel constitutes the most correctly implemented and accurate processing they can achieve - is all that is required. It's true that having an 'upsampling' on/off switch at my disposal made for some interesting auditioning during my experience outlined in the above-linked article, but not necessarily for higher-fidelity listening. But it's likewise true that most of the newer players/processors said to incorporate 'upsampling' don't feature a switch to defeat it either (as I guess they shouldn't if the manufacturer believes in the concept, whatever that's purported to be).

What's interesting to me is that I believe the Gen. VIII is the only CD processor or player reviewed by the mag in some time now which isn't said to incorporate something termed 'upsampling'. That observation is made even more interesting by your review results. To me, there is a story in there, even if it doesn't turn out to be a story about bits of data, so much as marketing to capitalize on confusion (perhaps of the intentionally-induced variety). Have audiophiles been chucking out their old players/processors over the past few years in order to rush out and buy the proverbial Brooklyn Bridge (new formats aside)? A designers' roundtable might shed some light, or at least some heat...

Can you explicitely distinguish upsampling from oversampling? ;-)

...Can the audiophiles who've read the ads/reviews and bought the latest players? ;^)

Anyway, if other manufacturers can't be cornered into providing the explicit definition for such a distinction, then kudos to Theta for having the balls to risk bucking the marketing trend by not caving to expediency and adopting terminology they clearly feel represents a false pretense. I hope their rectitude doesn't come back to punch them in the ear (although the $10K 2-channel scenario might, particularly should anything go awry with their hi-rez digital-input upgrade plans vis-a-vis the industry powers that be...)