Hi Guys,
The topic for this thread was inspired by a debate that started over on the Lampizator measurement thread.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?18792-Lampizator-DAC-measurements&p=347730#post347730
As a designer of audio gear, there's 2 paths you can go down:
1: Design the equipment to be as transparent as possible. Straight wire with gain. No additional colorations added to the music.
2: Purposely design coloration into the equipment because it can make music more enjoyable to listen to.
Most highend audio companies go down path #2. Why is that? Well simply because it's much easier to sell products that sprinkle a little fairy dust on the recordings. It's no different than Samsung having a special setting for TV's at Bestbuy to artificially make the colours pop. Another reason is it makes the components more forgiving of either poor quality components in the chain, or poor quality recordings.
My personal opinion on the matter is, if the colorations are engineered into the hardware, they are there for good. You simply can't turn them off. You will also never be able to experience the recordings the same way the studio intended them to sound. However if the components are designed for upmost transparency, you can always emulate desired colorations in the digital domain. And when you have that flawless recording, simply disable.
If the recordings are mastered in the finest way possible at the studio, you should want to hear them the purest way possible.
Another thing that can be done if you choose a DAC designed for upmost transparency is, add the desired colorations by making new recordings via the analog outputs of the colored source, using ultra transparent ADC's and software in DSD 256. Using this technique, all you need to do is just buy an ADC/DAC combo that's designed for upmost transparency, and borrow the colored gear of your choice to make your own recordings that will have the colorations embedded right into them. Then you simply playback via the transparent DAC section, and there you go, an exact replica of the colored source.
Best of all, if you get tired of that sound, do it again with the latest, greatest colored source, instead of buying something new.
Makes sense to me
The topic for this thread was inspired by a debate that started over on the Lampizator measurement thread.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?18792-Lampizator-DAC-measurements&p=347730#post347730
As a designer of audio gear, there's 2 paths you can go down:
1: Design the equipment to be as transparent as possible. Straight wire with gain. No additional colorations added to the music.
2: Purposely design coloration into the equipment because it can make music more enjoyable to listen to.
Most highend audio companies go down path #2. Why is that? Well simply because it's much easier to sell products that sprinkle a little fairy dust on the recordings. It's no different than Samsung having a special setting for TV's at Bestbuy to artificially make the colours pop. Another reason is it makes the components more forgiving of either poor quality components in the chain, or poor quality recordings.
My personal opinion on the matter is, if the colorations are engineered into the hardware, they are there for good. You simply can't turn them off. You will also never be able to experience the recordings the same way the studio intended them to sound. However if the components are designed for upmost transparency, you can always emulate desired colorations in the digital domain. And when you have that flawless recording, simply disable.
If the recordings are mastered in the finest way possible at the studio, you should want to hear them the purest way possible.
Another thing that can be done if you choose a DAC designed for upmost transparency is, add the desired colorations by making new recordings via the analog outputs of the colored source, using ultra transparent ADC's and software in DSD 256. Using this technique, all you need to do is just buy an ADC/DAC combo that's designed for upmost transparency, and borrow the colored gear of your choice to make your own recordings that will have the colorations embedded right into them. Then you simply playback via the transparent DAC section, and there you go, an exact replica of the colored source.
Best of all, if you get tired of that sound, do it again with the latest, greatest colored source, instead of buying something new. Makes sense to me
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