Munich High End 2015

[GuillaumeB]

Hi Guillaume, you're just teasing now aren't you. They didn't get you to sign a non-disclosure, did they?

Go on, give us the juicy stuff!

Of course not! 

My questions were mainly around SAM2 and trying to understand how it would affect me with my Sasha 2 speakers which are already SAMified.

The short answer is that it makes very little difference (if any) to existing speaker configurations. The purpose of SAM2 is simply to be able to measure and SAMify more speakers, essentially speakers that had too many parameters for SAM(1) to work correctly. I was given as an example the Rockport speakers. So SAM2 has more parameters.

However digging a little deeper I discovered that SAM2 is more efficient in its DSP operations leading to a lower processing burden on the DSP engine. Might this affect sound quality? This remains an open question. But the official position seems to be that it changes nothing for existing SAMified speakers like mine. 

Secondly I was interested in understanding how MAT DSD worked, and if anything made it unique vis-a-vis the offerings of other manufacturers. So here is the official explanation:

MAT converts DSD into 40bit/384 kHz (yes you read that correctly!!!) thanks to an optimised algorithm limiting the amount of computational operations on the audio stream. Using only 15 bit perfect additions (no multiplication, no storage) the MAT algorithm performs a 128 taps, linear phase FIR (Finite Impulse Response) digital filter ensuring the conversion of the DSD format into internal native PCM format... and they claim with an outstanding level of performance.

Guillaume