29-Feb-2016, 17:58
I suppose the magnitude of these differences are described differently by different people.
I still own the first (I believe) separate DAC available on the domestic market, a Sony DAS-702ES. I also have a Chord Hugo, a good modern DAC. I recently found the Sony in the cellar where it had been for about 15 years and compared the Hugo and old (>30 years) Sony. The difference was clear but much, much less than is commonly found between two phono cartridges, for example. I would not describe the difference as huge, but rather subtle, and that is the result of 30 years of development.
Mind you, I still have never tried the USB input on my Devialets so don't know how good or awful it can be, my main input nowadays is AES from CD transport with Air second and LPs next.
The only aspect of sound reproduction where domestic audio pushes technology is signal to noise ratio, other aspects are simpler than any other uses of digital technology I know of, and the digital side is less limiting in this aspect than the analogue part of the system.
I still own the first (I believe) separate DAC available on the domestic market, a Sony DAS-702ES. I also have a Chord Hugo, a good modern DAC. I recently found the Sony in the cellar where it had been for about 15 years and compared the Hugo and old (>30 years) Sony. The difference was clear but much, much less than is commonly found between two phono cartridges, for example. I would not describe the difference as huge, but rather subtle, and that is the result of 30 years of development.
Mind you, I still have never tried the USB input on my Devialets so don't know how good or awful it can be, my main input nowadays is AES from CD transport with Air second and LPs next.
The only aspect of sound reproduction where domestic audio pushes technology is signal to noise ratio, other aspects are simpler than any other uses of digital technology I know of, and the digital side is less limiting in this aspect than the analogue part of the system.
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
