Recent content by Ken Newton

  1. Ken Newton

    What is the benefit of very expensive DACs?

    Those same questions can be applied to any audio component. First, there's the law of diminishing return regarding performance/price ratios. Incremental improvements in sound quality become exponentially more costly to obtain. Second, some folks simply do not percieve incremental improvements in...
  2. Ken Newton

    Blind Test Challenge Offered by Engineer on Audiogon

    Steve, That's my long experience with them as well. They like to fancy themselves as protectors of consumers from charlatans and fools. They are self appointed knights of the realm of orthodoxy, as I like to say. They see themselves as righteous warriors, but they behave more as thugs...
  3. Ken Newton

    The importance of Resolution

    Musical resolution/clarity seems an perplexing perceived phenomena at times. I once owned a pair of Martin-Logan electrostats which seemed to reveal music with extreme clarity. Not only were details not heard with other speakers revealed, they seemed to be seperated from each other in space as...
  4. Ken Newton

    Do you believe this Schiit? I don't.

    My first suspician is that your Schiit DAC is faulty. Perhaps, a bad solder joint to ground somewhere. That could be causing both hum as well as interfere with the digital link integrity.
  5. Ken Newton

    Brand Loyalty: Can one be too loyal?

    The brand of a product serves as a proxy for level of product satisfaction which can be expected by the buyer. This is very useful for products purchase decisions in which all the pertinent information about a given product's performance and quality are not esily ascertainable. This condition...
  6. Ken Newton

    The best Dipoles, Dipoles that can do bass?

    Thanks, my delicate sensibilities much appreciate it.
  7. Ken Newton

    The best Dipoles, Dipoles that can do bass?

    You began a thread. You solicited members for their opinions, and received many responses. Why the coy cloak-and-dagger spy routine about your solution?
  8. Ken Newton

    Yet another Grounding Gadget : this time from Schnerzinger

    Yes, equally useful, or equally useless. Whichever.
  9. Ken Newton

    DSD comparison to PCM.

    However, there also is high rate DSD. The trade-offs are the same, relative to a given information rate. In other words, for a given data rate regardless whether PCM or DSD. Distortion isn't a function of the coding scheme. It is a function of the A/D and D/A quantizer design located at either...
  10. Ken Newton

    DSD comparison to PCM.

    I apologize if the following points were already made somewhere upthread. Probably, the two most salient performance parameters for any digital signal coding scheme are the Nyquist bandwidth (which, effectively sets the signal's high frequency limit for audio), and the native quantization noise...
  11. Ken Newton

    What is the benefit of very expensive DACs?

    Perhaps, he means that otherwise, one would require smoothing capacitors that are both high-voltage and high-capacitance.
  12. Ken Newton

    R2R DACs 2017

    They very likely utilize FPGA chips to implement proprietary processing algorithms, and the 1-bit PWM quantizer - as opposed to commercial DAC chips.
  13. Ken Newton

    R2R DACs 2017

    According to their website, the Mola-Mola DAC features high order noise-shaping. Single-bit sigma-delta modulation DACs also feature high order noise-shaping. The actual quantizer Mola-Mola implements here is NOT an R2R, but a pulse width modulation (PWM) type. PWM is a kind of single-bit...
  14. Ken Newton

    Jim Nabors-Dead at 87

    I got a kick out of his rich baritone singing voice compared to his cartoony nasal twang of a speaking voice. I always wondered whether that speaking voice was natural or merely contrived for show business.
  15. Ken Newton

    TAD DA1000 click just before playback starts

    I don't know whether that noise is normal or not for your model DAC, but it's possible that the DAC's output muting circuit is not functioning properly, assuming that it has one. The designers may have simply omitted a muting circuit as these have developed a reputation for sometimes degrading...
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