I'll chip in. He did reveal earlier on this thread that his listening test was a subjective one. Also, by barrows' own admission following syn08's link, barrows is in audio business and such reluctance is common among those who post with business interest. Not doing so will undercut their business because the words can spread fast online. Hope this helps. 
In the absence of evidence that he has such expectations (i'm seeing none) this is a straw man.
Somehow, calling those ignorant because they don't believe his claims and challenged him, aren't visible to you, eh.
Doing your audio business work again, Jakob.
Mhm, asking you to repost the objective DAC listening tests you were talking about or at least asking you to provide some useful search terms to find these posts, is "doing my business work again" ?
Doesn't it corrobate _your_ position if this way some evidence is shown?
It would be much more effective if you'd just tell the members/readers what search terms to use to find the DAC listening tests you were talking about.
Up to now using the forum search I couldn't find your posts with citations of these tests......
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Actually, Jocko had two hammers. Jitter and discrete common-base I/V converters. Insisted that anything else was rubbish. As it turns out, the market seems to have decided that he was wrong since the vast majority of new top rated DACs have some kind of op-amp I/V converter and use tiny SMD XOs that he would consider mediocre at best. He probably had oscillator designs which beat them in close-in phase noise eons ago, but it doesn't seem like anyone cares because boxes with the ubiquitous NDK and Crystek XOs are everywhere.
He is a smart guy, and I often learned things from his posts and discussions, but I think he's wrong.
If Jocko says he hears improvement with low phase noise clocks, I can't see any reason to disbelieve that and I don't work for any audio company. My hypothesis is such low phase noise only becomes an issue for S-D DACs - as I don't use those, I don't much care
@chris719 : Jocko's third hammer was about cable lengths when using S/PDIF - though you could just say it was an aspect of his jitter hammer.
WOW - I've not been around much on DiyForum these past few years - but its REALLY sad to see how a few poster who IMO can be better described as "Trolls" REALLY bring the tone of this forum down... Very Very Very sad...
I feel its important to stand up and add my voice of support - I whole hearty support Jocko on the mentioned matters!!!!
I'd go so far as to say that if one where to count total HiFI DAC sales, then my Audiolab (MDAC etc), Cambridge Audio (DacMagic etc), ProJect (S2 etc) designs (and many MANY others) - once these DAC sales quantities are combined would place me at or near the top of any DAC sales Qty table...
The point being is that I'm sorry to say that I use discrete clock designs in all my designs - I would NEVER use the "ubiquitous NDK" type "Tiny SMD devices" due to there Close in Phase noise performance.
Crystek XOs are in fact DISCRETE designs and help them achieve "decent" performance!
The reason "most" manufacturer's use "tiny SMD XO" is that they simply dont have the skill set to design a high performance XO circuit - nevermind have the equipment to characteristic the Clocks PN performance!
Its my working experience that Close-in phase noise is Extremely important to highest audio quality!
I/V's are nothing but a bag of hurt - but again a well designed discrete design has the easy potential of outperforming the best opamps!!! You have to have a poor Discrete design to sound worst then the best integrated opamps. Again, the reason you dont see discrete I/V / Opamps designs is that the audio industry on the whole sadly lacks design skills! As a skilled engineer you either work in Audio for the love of it, or make your fortune in an industry that pays - and for sure that's NOT in audio!
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Hm. I have been recently using a top execution 4490 Mirand dac, 4490 with voltage out switched cap output section (opamp). It still sounds great.
Now I am twiddling with a 4499 dac with current output, external I/V conversion. Sounds better.
Both dac only sounds OK if the clock has been massaged well. I am using NDK SDA clocks.
Chris, of Jocko's opinion about NDK clocks.. For a long time one could have obtained from him, selected. He is not enemy of good progress, seemingly.
I would never dare to write off Jocko's opinions.
Ciao, George
Now I am twiddling with a 4499 dac with current output, external I/V conversion. Sounds better.
Both dac only sounds OK if the clock has been massaged well. I am using NDK SDA clocks.
Chris, of Jocko's opinion about NDK clocks.. For a long time one could have obtained from him, selected. He is not enemy of good progress, seemingly.
I would never dare to write off Jocko's opinions.
Ciao, George
Joseph, yes very much indeed!!! - I wrote my reply badly, I did not mean to infer that Chris was the Troll (I'm very Sorry Chris if it read like this) - but I believe we are on the same page as to who the Troll is...
I'm very surprised that the forum moderators have allowed it to continue for so long - its why people like myself are driven away from otherwise decent forums...
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