totaldac D1 server

[f1eng]

I do some digital recording. I have two recorders and one of them is completely transparent in that the output is identical sounding to the input by ear. I can not tell whether I am listening to the direct microphone feed or the same signal having gone through the A-D and D-A process.
All the people I know that do recording have the same comment.
This was never the case with analogue recorders where the sound was notably different off tape.

A lot of people prefer the sound off tape, ie the distortions and shaping generated by the tape recording process is pleasantly euphonic.
It seems that many of the users of the digital recorder I have use a plugin to emulate the tape saturation distortion of a reel-to-reel recorder since they like the sound generated.

Based on my experience of recording (over 40 years) my opinion is that a properly engineered ADC/DAC pair is completely audibly transparent. The logical (IMHO) conclusion from this is that a properly engineered conventional DAC is nowadays transparent.

I believe that a lot of very expensive DACs have had deliberate euphonic colour engineered into them so they sound different to other products. If they sound preferable to somebody that is fine but deliberate colouration not a "better DAC".

I have a similar experience to Guillaume. I have tried a couple of different DACs (in my case older ones) into the analogue inputs my Devialet and the characteristic sound of each was clear.

So my conclusion is two-fold. Firstly the Devialet ADC/DAC is audibly transparent (and therefore there can not be a more recent better DAC).
If one has a preference for the euphonic sound generated in some of the eccentric and often very expensive DACs on the market the Devialet's non-coloured, transparent digital section will reproduce it perfectly.

Thank you for your limpid answer. Can I ask you whether you have reached the same conclusion as Guillaume as far as the feeding of music streams to the Devialet is concerned ? Are you using a similar music server as the d1-server, which includes a digital reclocking unit in order to de-jitter the digital flow ?

Since I have yet to find a streaming software that deals with classical music logically I still mainly listen to CDs and LPs. See my signature.
However good a streaming server is it is moot if it needs 30 minutes re-arranging tags before it plays the works back in the correct order.

The best (least coloured) sound I get is a Goldmund Mimesis 36+ into AES input. I think it uses a FIFO and reclocks the output though Goldmund don't ever give technical details.

For added colour I have 4 different turntables

It is possible to use my digital recorder to output a digital stream of any file and then I can add all sorts of plugins, tape saturation simulation, reverb, valve amplifier colour (4 different ones) and so forth, as much as I like, but I choose not to.