Dreadhead

Or because some DACs do weird things to make the two sound different. The chord DAC64 is a good example of this (at least to my friends ears since he sold it afterward). Truncation from 24 to 16 should be like this (just an example): 24bit: .9230232332102301239123091233120931209 16bit: .923023233210230123912309 Sample rate conversion on the other hand can be a bit of a problem and there are different theories on how to do this that have their own problems. In the end each is an interpolation. There have been tests done where people have taken a 24/96 stream and created a DBT box that either left it alone or resampled and trunctated it (correctly) and no one could tell the difference. Actually if I remember correctly someone could tell but he admitted it was because the "click" when the stream engaged was slightly different not anything to do with the music.

I wish I could come

so true. Most sound guys deserve to be shot. If you're listening to unamplified jazz (other than vocals) or classical then argument doesn't hold much water though.

I absolutely agree it will reduce your DNR SNR but so does a regular volume control so I don't see that as much of an issue. Also you are now asking your output stage to amplify a smaller signal and hence you should get a more linear response out of it and lower THD. It's a trade off between better linearity in the DAC portion but worse in the output stage. I think at best it's a toss up between attenuators and digital volume control. You probably only need the top 16 bits of data at max volume and people can't hear below whatever they can't hear below so when the data at the bottom drops out it is just gone.

They think that the 32 bit is now covering the smaller range but that's not how it works as we both know.

As stated for a lot of 24 bit dacs the data is still there too. With the 32bit dac the data is swallowed in noise. My DEQ does it's math in 32 bit and then outputs it back out in 24bit that doesn't mean a damn thing other than the math is accurate inn 24bits. The Bel Canto does digital volume control in 26bits for the same reason but to be honest the last two bits beyond 22 do nothing.

It's 2 db lower noise floor at best acording to ESS so that's not considerable in my books. A lot 24bit dacs hover around 20bits or which is around 110dB SNR and as grawk says will likely blow your eardrums out before you hear noise.

yeah 22bits is ear bleed territory I was just asking the academic question. 133 dB is about 22 bits.

I kept both orders I feel no guilt... well possibly a little

Am I missing something? Why build a 32 bit dac with a theoretical SNR of 22 bits or so? 10 bits of noise?

Better sue oakley too then.

Justin, that is horrible looking... I vote you finish that one and send it to me and I will get back to you in 1 or 2 decades about how to improve the looks. thanks... I look forward to the pm

Wait a minute how the heck did you get in?

I'm not saying it doesn't sound good I'm just saying it's down almost 3dB at 20kHz which is a lot for most DACs: Stereophile: Wadia 27ix & Wadia 270 transport

Well if it's like other wadia, the DAC will be a lot less harsh and more "musical". Wadia's filter rolls off like a mo-fo.

yup since you actually own the phones. I unfortunately do not or I would do the measurements with my setup. I think your observations sit pretty well with what I measured but again this is a foggy recollection. Sort of annoyed I deleted it now. As we have already discussed your buddy's mic and ear are nicer than my setup anyway. I use a pair of rubber bands to apply the clamping pressure in my case which is not ideal but does work. I'm thinking about that artificial ear though, that would settle these issues pretty much but is still hard to justify when I will likely just settle down to two different or even one pair of headphones in the next year.

I'm sorry I can't remember where the roll off occurred but it was pretty fast and was over 10db by 20hz. I would guess it started at about 80? Really though I would not trust that number at all. I did not change the clamping pressure but I did move them around relative to the measurement mic and repeat an that did not make much difference. Because my "dummy head" is a flat bloc of foam the transducer to mic distance didn't change much. I would be interested to check to see if the seal is better with new pads and that's why they sound different. My limited experimentation with this is that if the seal isn't perfect the results can change a lot.

My measurement setup is kosher for any delta (comparison) measurement as far as I'm concerned. The fidelity of the measurement can certainly be improved with a better mic or an artificial ear but the experimental design as it stands is fine for the purpose. I have done way to many experiments in my life to not at least know how to make a control set and do repeatability tests etc. As I said before I deleted the graphs of the r10 months ago when I was cleaning out my DEQ. By my recollection they were a bass light pair had an exceedingly enhanced mid-range and rolled off highs and lows.

I actually wasn't saying that mine weren't taken seriously. I couldn't really care less that my measurements aren't being taken seriously by Head-Case. I mostly just responded to you so others wouldn't spout what you were saying. My question to you is that do you realize that the steel grounded cage around their amps is Faraday cage so that's not going to lower anything unless they are already in a region of very high EM. I've done measurements measuring microvolts out of very sensitive quantum mechanics experiments and guess what no faraday cage. If only I would have used the cage then I'd have a nobel now.... damn As far as headroom and their measurements as I've said before their experiments show physical impossibilities and varying noise floors which point pretty handily to serious experimental design problems. I always used to trust their measurements but I do so less now.

That I will entirely agree with you about

Better pull out your tin foil hat... I mean faraday cage lol

Looks Like I could rent a that pair for a month for 310 BRUEL & KJAER 4153 - For Sale at Used-Line tempting.... not this month though.

nice. That is a all out analog measurement done with a paper plotter. SCHWEET

WTF does a Faraday cage have to do with taking sound measurements? May I ask were the electrons or electric field come from? There are such things as measurement mics? really? Headroom uses a "Head Acoustics Artificial Head Measurement System" which can be found here (HEAD acoustics - Telecom Division - Binaural Recording Systems - Artificial Head Measurement System HMS II.4 - Overview) though I'm not sure which model in particular they own. I assume they use the anechoic chamber so they can measure the isolation which is not a particular concern of mine and so as to not have reflections effect the results. Their measurements make even less sense than mine considering that the isolation (a physical property) changes with balancing, this likely points to different positioning on the head which is more of an issue that some would like to believe. I have an ECM8000 measurement mic (as stated many times previously), which is admittedly a cheaper measurement mic but I got the calibration curve that was professionally done for one of them at a lab. Admittedly I could do a lot better as far as a measurement mic goes but for the money it does the trick. I considered buying a coupler and still might but considering I could build one of of structural foam for free I decided to do that for now. I've seen neumann and other heads go on the second hand market but I'd need a whole lot more of a reason (such as a business like Headroom) before I invest in one since they are several hundred dollars. As far as an chamber I'll stick with doing it in a very quiet room since it's a whole lot cheaper Cheers.

I thought you guys didn't care about frequency response curves? I did one for an R10 (since deleted sorry) but I didn't post it because people would have gone nuts telling me I did stuff wrong