the thing that trips up so many technical people when thinking about data is that if the bits are transmitted without error (or with errors corrected), that you cannot have an audible difference. but what is so often overlooked is that, unlike copying a computer file from a CD to a hard-drive, audio data requires precise timing of delivery. your file copy doesn't care if the bits come at a rate that varies slightly or greatly -- it can afford to wait until the bits arrive, and write them to the destination drive. but in audio, the bits represent the amplitude of the signal at a certain point in time -- so if you get the amplitude perfectly right, but the point in time slightly wrong, it's as if you got the amplitude slightly wrong (because the original signal would likely have been slightly different at a slightly different point in time). and of course, *how* different it would be is a function of frequency -- lower frequencies will be less wrong, higher ones more wrong.
so that is why it is a fallacy to only talk about whether the bits are transmitted with errors, because audio bits are different from file bits or web page bits in that their precise timing is required to allow them to properly represen the original signal. the saving grace is that if you *know* what the timing is supposed to be apriori (i.e., it is the sampling rate), then you can get past the timin errors by buffering the bits, and play them back at the right sampling rate -- that's what accessories like the monarchy DIP do. my SB is connected to a monarchy DIP before hitting the DAC, and it sweetens and smooths the treble to a welcome (if subtle) degree. -- apeman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ apeman's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13533 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39113 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
