Dbphd, your question is reasonable.
All devices with "Pass Through" feature degrade the sound merely by their presence. As you well know, you will not find a cleaner signal emerging than went in. You may find a more processed signal that to your ear is more pleasing, but it will have been absolutely degraded by the presence of the non-necessary device.
Never consider a signal going through a device's Pass Through as if it were not degraded. Recently I heard the QOL "signal completion stage" device in my system. I comapred the Bypass/Pass Through mode vs. the sound of the system without the QOL inserted. I felt it degraded the sound to a degree I could not accept, even if it does some interesting things when not in bypass.
In any attempt to attain the most premium sound for stereo available I strongly advise avoiding all Pass Through features in favor of a more direct route. Often a strikingly better sound quality is attained simply by the removal of the non-necessary component and extra set of interconnects.
One exception I have found to this are 32 bit processing DACs, which seem to holistically elevate the sound quality through interpolation of the data. What they can bring to the sound imo far outweighs the electronic overburden they add to most CD players and Net-based sources.
All devices with "Pass Through" feature degrade the sound merely by their presence. As you well know, you will not find a cleaner signal emerging than went in. You may find a more processed signal that to your ear is more pleasing, but it will have been absolutely degraded by the presence of the non-necessary device.
Never consider a signal going through a device's Pass Through as if it were not degraded. Recently I heard the QOL "signal completion stage" device in my system. I comapred the Bypass/Pass Through mode vs. the sound of the system without the QOL inserted. I felt it degraded the sound to a degree I could not accept, even if it does some interesting things when not in bypass.
In any attempt to attain the most premium sound for stereo available I strongly advise avoiding all Pass Through features in favor of a more direct route. Often a strikingly better sound quality is attained simply by the removal of the non-necessary component and extra set of interconnects.
One exception I have found to this are 32 bit processing DACs, which seem to holistically elevate the sound quality through interpolation of the data. What they can bring to the sound imo far outweighs the electronic overburden they add to most CD players and Net-based sources.