We Need To Talk About Ones And Zeroes

@devinplombier 

I appreciate your kind words on my system. NADAC stack is indeed a very ‘special’ product. It’s a shame that they didn’t gain much traction in US market.  

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Agreed, our ears are limited to perceiving what is presented, not what might be absent or subtly compromised. We all are capable of listening but do we all perceive the information in same manner? Are we listening for bass or treble, detail or dynamics or do we strive for coherence, timing, tone, presence and emotions. I believe, we are also listening for what our audio system is not communicating or producing, right? 

I also agree that most claims of “transformational” improvements from passive digital components are almost certainly exaggerated, given bit-perfect nature of digital streaming. 

I’m all for exploration, but I’m also deeply skeptical of hyperbolic claims, especially when they come without context or proper a/b comparison. To me, It’s all about striking a delicate balance. 

As far as measurements, while they remain critical for getting the basics right, they don’t always reflect emotional or perceptual experiences. At the end of the day, everyone is free to chase what brings them joy. But I do firmly believe that our pursuit for a good sounding system benefits most when curiosity is anchored in reason and when we leave enough room for both exploration and skepticism to coexist.

@mapman 

So the network needs to have sufficient bandwidth for the job.  That’s pretty much a given with modern home network technology

If you are streaming over the internet, you should also include the myriad of servers, routers and connections that make up the paths from music server to your home network and are shared by millions of other users.  All of which is often conveniently hidden by drawing the internet as a cloud, which is the last thing it actually is.

There is a fully engineered network design which uses a seven layer model - the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) international standard but by and large we have chosen to use something quite different - the Internet.

The Internet has grown like topsy, and contains almost no standards.  About the best you can hope for are RFCs - Requests For Comment.  It only contains four layers!  Its address range prior to IPv6 is a pathetic 64,000 times smaller than Ethernet addresses - no wonder it has run out!  IPv6 fixes this but is really struggling to take off.

But I do firmly believe that our pursuit for a good sounding system benefits most when curiosity is anchored in reason and when we leave enough room for both exploration and skepticism to coexist.

@lalitk 

I could not agree more, and in fact this applies to most things in life.

I try to keep an open mind and adopt the position that very few things are 100% black or white.

@devinplombier

 this blog post by Benjamin Zwickel - the founder and designer of respected DAC manufacturer Mojo Audio - who is considerably more qualified than I to dissert on the subject

I ploughed through the article and quickly guessed that Mojo Audio does not natively support DSD!  Talk about bias.

The author mistakes DAC for ADC, which is forgivable.  However, the statement that "Even Sony no longer supports DSD and SACD" is laughable. 

“I am gonna have to disagree on this one”
@mdalton 

I get where you’re coming from and comparison to Ptolemy’s geocentric model is a good analogy.

I’m all for theory-based approaches, and I think skepticism is healthy, especially when people start making hyperbolic claims. But I don’t think it’s a matter of “going backward” as you so eloquently stated, it’s about finding a balance between the science we know, the theories we develop and the subjective experience we can’t fully define yet. 

You do know, I admire your system and respect your opinion but we been through this before….we may not agree on how much certain upstream changes matter, but I think we both care deeply about getting the most out of our audio systems and staying grounded in what actually delivers musical joy.

So here’s to agreeing to disagree, respectfully and with ears wide open :-)