I did.I suppose one could read the measurements & stats all day long, but how many people would buy a dac purely on those without listening to it? I wouldn't!
I did.I suppose one could read the measurements & stats all day long, but how many people would buy a dac purely on those without listening to it? I wouldn't!
Anyone using Audio Note DACs? Ever since I discovered these non oversampling DACs, I cannot listen to a pure solid state DAC.
I lust after the DAC 4 and even more so the DAC 5 special/sig. Of course now the fifth element must be even better.
There isn’t much user feedback about these DACs. Please share your experience if you’ve heard them or own them. And also in what system? I’m currently running a Naim and Harbeth system with Audio Note DAC 2 as source component.
I suppose one could read the measurements & stats all day long, but how many people would buy a dac purely on those without listening to it? I wouldn't!
I suppose one could read the measurements & stats all day long, but how many people would buy a dac purely on those without listening to it? I wouldn't!
But it does end with:
"The CD-4.1x is a paradox: does it sound good because of how it measures or despite it?"
Whilst I've never heard an Audionote DAC the clue to the units perceived greatness are indeed in the measurements and alluded to in the article...
The lack of a filter, either analog or digital, means that ultrasonic image energy—the "negative frequencies" to which I refer in the title of my Richard M. Heyser Memorial Lecture to the Audio Engineering Society in October 2011, "Where Did the Negative Frequencies Go?"—is present to its full extent in the DAC's output, which in turn means that its time-domain reproduction is optimal. Fig.2, for example, shows the impulse response of the CD-4.1x; it is indeed a perfect, if inverted, impulse.
Perfect time domain response... there you have it!
I did.
Me too.
Keith
Reminds me of the Audio Designer who was asked to design a phono stage for one of the larger audio companies. When asked what did it sound like? The reply was "I don't know, I never built it, therefore, I never got to hear it"...
I prefer to listen to the recording and not the equipment and thus the less equipment own sound / distortion the better. Others may think differently.
So how do you know that because all equipment has its own sound! More importantly, and this has been discussed at length on this forum, loudspeakers produce magnitudes more distortion than any amplifier, DAC or phono stage will produce...
And in spite of that (loudspeakers producing magnitudes more distortion than electronics) one can still hear differences between electronic equipment. Amazing.
Who does it sound good to?