can DACs sound different if they both measure well?

can DACs sound different of they both measure well?

  • Yes, I know I can hear the difference

    Votes: 69 45.7%
  • I think I can hear differences sometimes

    Votes: 26 17.2%
  • Not sure

    Votes: 18 11.9%
  • No, they will sound the same

    Votes: 38 25.2%

  • Total voters
    151
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Where is the evidence of this nonsense claim?!
Your claim is the nonsense. You don't understand what makes noise look like noise on an FFT, do you? You don't know what makes noise audible or not either? Its not just how it looks on an audio FFT.

In any case, a noise floor is like the top of a cloud. Noise floors are not opaque. They are an average value of the top of a cloud of noise. Can you see through part of a cloud when it is on the ground in the form of fog?
 
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Look at the graphs in the presentation, and learn how DFTs and steady-state distortion tests work. Do you really want to take on that effort to understand the technical part?

Do you have a clue what state variables are in a sigma-delta dac? In not, how could you understand how they make a burst of noise when they settle?
Mark, those things are not audible. So low level it doesnt matter for listening to. What matters in any distortion measurement is the level relative to the signal.
 
"The early history of solitons or solitary waves began in August 1834 when the Victorian Engineer John Scott Russell observed a solitary wave travelling along a Scottish canal. The definitive theory was not published until 1895 by Korteweg and de Vries, working in Amsterdam. The subject was reborn in Plasma Physics in 1958 with the discovery, by J. H. Adlam and the author, of solitary waves in a collisionless plasma containing a magnetic field."

So, back in 1834 when John Scott Russell observed a solitary wave on a river, he was hallucinating because he had no scientific proof on that day? Or does observation come first in science, then it may take considerable time before some observation has been carefully studied and explained scientifically?

As far as ITD mattering, yes it does. It is a widely, well-known, accepted fact that it is needed for ITD localization in stereo sound field. Interchannel phase coherence is an essential factor.

As far a spatial cues go, it has been studied:
https://www.academia.edu/4958145/Su...r_audio_systems_by_the_auralization_technique
 
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ASR makes money (advertisments and payed memberships) making people feel great that the cheaper gear beats more expensive gear and that it's all a fraud. Who's heart isn't warmed by that. The cult even has it's very own god named SINAD that is unique to them.
 
We're very good at picking out periodic changes within a signal, an fft doesn't do this it just gives you the bulk result. By hearing in discrete time frames we can hear the very low level repeating glitch that might only occur in 1 sample 1000. As a raw number its tiny, well below the noise when taken as its overall contribution, but because of its repeating pattern it becomes audible.

Distortion of 10% that only occurs in 1:1000 samples becomes only 0.1% of the overall contribution but stands out like a sore thumb.

Think of it like having one red candy in a bowl of black candies. It's overall contribution to the average weighted colour of the bowl is nothing, but you can sure pick it out. This is what most measurements do, they average. Audio measurements average over time, the way we listen allows us to pick out these things. Sometimes, for some types of distortion and noise.

More research needed, and for the record, I'm a hard objectivist.
 
ASR makes money (advertisments and payed memberships) making people feel great that the cheaper gear beats more expensive gear and that it's all a fraud. Who's heart isn't warmed by that. The cult even has it's very own god named SINAD that is unique to them.
It's actually the other way round. Hifi companies make money from audiophools who think they can hear differences between cables and DACs. (see how this works?)
 
We're very good at picking out periodic changes within a signal, an fft doesn't do this it just gives you the bulk result. By hearing in discrete time frames we can hear the very low level repeating glitch that might only occur in 1 sample 1000. As a raw number its tiny, well below the noise when taken as its overall contribution, but because of its repeating pattern it becomes audible.

Distortion of 10% that only occurs in 1:1000 samples becomes only 0.1% of the overall contribution but stands out like a sore thumb.

Think of it like having one red candy in a bowl of black candies. It's overall contribution to the average weighted colour of the bowl is nothing, but you can sure pick it out. This is what most measurements do, they average. Audio measurements average over time, the way we listen allows us to pick out these things. Sometimes, for some types of distortion and noise.

More research needed, and for the record, I'm a hard objectivist.

Source for this? It would definitely be measurable. A distortion of 10% is huge and would be measurable. Have you just made this situation up?
 
You hear the baby crying perfectly even when standing under a shower. Okay so now we know noise. To be honest a legitimate signal is also noise, but we discriminate between signal and noise. Rap music is definitely very high noise and we discriminate it as being noise.
 
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