Don‘t be coy, everyone here knows what DAC I use. Regardless of what it’s flaws might be I can assure you that you are the only one who has ever heard it to describe it as being pierced by ice rain. I never bashed the Vivaldi as I have insufficient expertise with hearing it and I said so. I primarily reacted to suggestions that because it was technically “perfect” that didn’t mean it was sonically so. My experience with Delius and Elgar are sufficient to say they are nothing special But not horrible either.
If listening isn't proof, measurements might be in order when a DAC exhibits more or less glaring digititis. While I agree that the seemingly perfect measurements of a DAC like the Weiss provide little or no explanation of what it sounds like, I'd be curious to see measurements of DACs that cause irritation and listening fatigue. In my conversations with Mark Levinson, he confirmed my impression, citing studies that people who suffer from migraine are overly sensitive to distortions (they usually more sensitive to flickering light, smells etc., e.g. staring into a stroboscope will trigger migraines etc.), and was hopeful we'd eventually be able to come up with more relevant measurements, pointing out that more people suffer from migraines (about 25% of the population, needless to say, to varying degrees) than there are audiophiles. We could easily find more people who hear the same as I do (I could name a couple who'd qualify as blind test candidates).
By the way, the metaphor "pierced by ice rain" by (referring to early) digital audio playback is, if memory serves, by Neil Young. Maybe he suffers from migraines?
Admittedly, it's a problem everyone talks about "digitits" as if we knew what's causing it, worse yet, as if there were universal agreement we're all referring to the same thing (my guess is, we probably are, but without proof, it's no more than a guess). An example I mentioned in passing was Yves-Bernard André's (of YBA, not sure if you know him?) CD player whose digital filter could be disabled toggling a switch. Musically, it clearly sounded superior with the digital filter turned off, but it was unbearable to listen to. I do not claim to be able to hear the 44.1kHz sampling frequency it would then play back at full volume (the reason I don't think he ever marketed the player), but as Monsieur Bernard pointed out, there are all kinds of distortions in this scenario, including ones the CD player causes downstream, such as in the amplifier, tweeters etc. It was a memorable experience to me because it was easier to put into words how "filterless" sounded better, than it was to explain why it made the more sensitive listeners cringe. As Monsieur Bernard later explained to me, I wasn't the only one to have this reaction, rather more surprisingly, it didn't bother a goodly percentage of people, hence the experiment (= if no one would be bothered, why use a digital filter at all was the premise of the experiment).
Greetings from Switzerland, David.