Thinking about getting a R2R DAC

I will add that the concept of "timbre" in acoustic can never in no way be reducible to high frequencies rendering....

Then what is important is the accuracy of the timbre instrument rendering, not only the high frequencies linked to it....Timbre ask for more than 5 complex concepts to be defined and it is not even a total consensus in science about the relation between all these necessary concepts ordering because it is a complex phenomenon.....

The fact that some NOS dac can give a good representation of timbre is a common experience....The fact that some non NOS dac can give also a good representation of timbre is another fact.... This representation/reproduction of the timbre instrument or  voices in a natural way is linked not only to the dac but MOSTLY to a great number of different other factors, some i called embeddings controls, and there are many others also....


« I prefer to anthropomorphize the world than simplifiying it too much»- Groucho Marx after a reading of Goethe

« Including oneself in reality is not rejecting reality, on the contrary, you are right brother»- Harpo Marx

« We cannot speak about a rainbow without including the man into the equation for example brothers» -Chico Marx

« A fact is NEVER only a fact, except for simple mind »- Anonymus

Also fact that noise / distortion can be pleasing to some and it has been shown, again fact that playing with noise and distortion can give a sense of space that is not in the recording.

All signals that comes from a musician recorded in a studio to the ears of an audiophile(even a deaf one) sitting in his room, are a complex chain of transformations and an imperfect recreation of the original lived event....( and the recording room,the speakers , the microphone,the recording instruments, the electrical grid of our house,the mechanical embedding of our audio system, the acoustical complex setting of the room etc play an enormous role and all this is not reducible to high frequencies rendering by some dac, NOS one or not)

Speaking of the" pure reproduction" of this event without any qualitative transformations and with an alleged and desirable perfect quantitative reproduction is a metaphor that point to an "idealized" situation that can never be realized completely anyway...

Thanks for recognizing the fact that what you called distortion can be pleasing for some...." playing with noise and distortion" is fundamental and the complex trade-off management inherently linked to engineering art....Accuracy is important for correctly using equations in electronic engineering but i hope that all old engineers with experience use their limited ears accuracy also and i hope that they do not always equate pleasing with accurate in the mathematical sense.....Anyway,i know that they do, they are not all dogmatical "religious" zealot character.... :)





My best regards ....

Accusing people of being deaf, especially old audiophiles, is not an argument because too much people are included; and assimilating numbers to phenomenon and reducing them to it dogmatically is more than bad science it is bad philosophy, ignoring the structural complexities of human hearing to reduce it to some very specialized engineering field concerning a very special kind of dac, is not convincing but reflect prejudices....

I make my own controls devices for the embeddings of an audio system with great results, even being old audiophile myself, with success... I bought nothing from the market except after hearing the results.... I devise my own electrical grid device, and my own mechanical control for the speakers, and the many devices i use for active acoustical controls and not only passive one are all homemade, then the "deaf" old audiophile i am smile at your dogmas by the number and this completely free accusation....

All that comes not from super hearing capabilities but from my listenings experiments for 2 years with my ordinary ears....Audio is NOT reducible to some engineering very specialized book about some very special kind of dac....I am perhaps deaf and old but not completely gullible....

Abraxalito made great remarks .... Thanks to him.....

My best to you both....

:)

i say the samething with more nuance.....


:)

I am sure you are not..... accurate in the technical sense is a good thing.....

accurate for my ears is also a good thing....

It is not a matter of confusion, it is a matter of assimilation between the 2 significations....

Nos dac does not mean inaccurate, unless we reduce accurate for my ears to accurate by numbers....
 
And sometimes techical improvement are not the "crux of the matter"  for audiophile experience, especially at moderate cost....Saying otherwise and reducing  the 2 sigification of "accurate" is  misleading....

My best to you....

Accurate: meaning an engineering measured number...

accurate: meaning a natural timbre, a feeling of the real instrument for the human ears...

Accurate?

Or these 2 meaning of accurate we conflate them and accurate means first and last a number on a measuring tool...

My nos dac cost me 25 dollars new on a bid and the idea to upgrade it seems ridiculous to me ....

After 2 years i cannot fathom his limit they were not audible to me....This dac improve with my speakers and amplifier embedding controls installation...

I dont doubt that there is better dac than mine, i will call them not more accurate but more musical if they are better, for example the Denafrips pontus in NOS mode is certainly better than my actual dac at his price........ Accuracy without musicality is without interest for me....



« I have 2 masters et they serve me well: my ears» -Groucho Marx


« They are not masters nor servants brother, they are your friends»-Harpo Marx