Archimago's Musings: Computer audio mythos? A comment on The Linear Solution's DS-1

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@David A, your analogy is thought-provoking but flawed: it was an objective, reproducible fact that the Wright brothers' aeroplane flew, whether or not people believed it at the time.  Anyone else could have built a 'plane to the Wright brother's design and made it fly -- I dare say some did.  On the other hand there is no analogous objective content in austinpop's review: if he says "it sounds better" (to him) then no-one can argue with or falsify that statement.  Actually no-one else can reproduce the experiment, because they aren't austinpop.

While reporting the subjective experience is all well and good, and makes interesting reading, austinpop goes on to attribute sound quality improvements to specific technical factors, for example:

Clearly the OCXO is the reason for the bulk of this improvement

If someone makes a definitive statement like that, without some proper evidence and justification it's just speculation and I think a degree of tyre-kicking should be expected.  It doesn't in any way upset science and engineering as we know it, because it's no more than a statement of personal opinion.

In short: I think we're agreeing about this...