Higher End DACs

bo reminds me of a certain cable promoter :-)   electro-smog ... there is a new term to laugh over at the water cooler.

The RF "sauce" is not latency influenced. How much RF is bandwidth influenced. If you are making the router/switch work hard (latency has little impact on that), then the RF signature goes up.

Again agree with djones51, w.r.t. -200db, that no one can hear it, and when the light of day is shined on the claim (properly administered test), the claimed ability to detect this disappears.

dmance, the only paper i could see that you referenced was on human hearing and fourier uncertainty principle which was sort of sham, hence why I don't believe it was ever published in a peer reviewed journal:  https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/accepted/?id=ca9f5091-2658-449e-b08e-b071712acbf0
That paper was a joke, but unfortunately there are too many science "pump" sites and audio sites are always desperate for content.

Were you referencing another paper? 

We can't address an argument, we refuse to consider our own bias, so we will insult and not think. Perhaps our bias is at play, or perhaps we have ignored other variables that could create perceived differences?  That is easier than putting thought into what is really happening. It is easy to link to pop-science articles than it is to understand what they are discussing and/or research if there is validity to their claims. It is much easier to claim we hear a difference than it is to validate that claim. It is easy to claim a difference is because of A, then to validate is it A.

I don't read this stuff in a book, but I may write the book (or the articles), and they are based on unbiased testing, but you don't need "testing" to know best practices w.r.t. keeping jitter low, reducing RF emissions, reducing vibration sensitivity, or what impacts jitter most .... the hifi audio reproduction industry is not the bleeding edge of technology.  There are many industries where verified low jitter, verified low noise, verified signal quality are important.

One does not normally start with a conclusion, they start with a premise, "The audible effects caused by RF noise are difficult to objectively measure yet are simultaneously subtle and obvious. Suffice it to say that they manifest as a reduction in musical transparency and increasedlistening fatigue. " 


Curious how you were able to listen to headphones/speakers which would transmit RF back to your DAC (you claim direct connection, no amplifier).

In your white paper, you use a log-periodic antenna rated for 1Ghz-18Ghz (or 1Ghz -2Ghz model dependent). That will be great to cover intentional radiators, but most RF energy from unintentional sources is well below that. Testing below 1GHz would be far more useful in most environments. Curiously you show results down to 100KHz for which your antenna would be poor. What you identify as standard radio communications and microwave radio communications in your "Rural Isolation Ambient Zero Baseline" are predominantly VHF and UHF television (UHF = 470-806). (p.s. Your sweep times are way too short for high quality measurements).


Of course, shielding the outside of the DAC doesn't negate likely the largest unintentional RF components (by intensity), namely components inside the DAC. Of course, most DACs do seem to have metal cases which are effectively Faraday cages, so sensitive circuitry with the exception of cable entry would be covered.

W.R.T. claims of "Sounds Better", there is no discussion of the test protocol, the number of testers, etc. so I guess we just "trust you"?  A future test is identified as "Double blind listening tests with a variety of subjects/music"   I would think proving a problem exists would be the first thing to do?