Source insensitivity as opposed to "perfect" immunity

[seeteeyou]

Similar convos were popping up here and there in the past, while THE most popular thread on our site (2.3 million views and counting) here should be all about relentless + bottomless + endless pursuit of achieving better SQ by means of upstream optimizations

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/page/494/?tab=comments#comment-905758

On 12/13/2018 at 8:37 PM, greenleo said:

I believe it's the degree of insensitivity rather than perfect immunity.  For top systems, everything matters.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/page/501/?tab=comments#comment-909703

On 12/27/2018 at 4:47 AM, Music Enthusiast said:

If manufacturers started making DAC's good enough for all of these tweaks to be ineffective, would that upset you guys? 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/57534-sgm-taiko-extreme/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-1003275

On 12/4/2019 at 2:56 PM, Nenon said:

I was trying to say that many manufacturers make claims that upstream devices don't make a difference, but I have never heard a DAC yet that is completely immune to upstream devices (never heard any MSB DACs, or the DCS DAC Rajiv reviewed, in my system, though). I have heard the opposite many times - changing upstream devices makes a bigger difference that changing DACs.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/57997-article-audiophile-style-products-of-the-decade/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-1015776

On 12/21/2019 at 8:48 AM, hopkins said:

For the coming decade I believe we will see "source immunity" and "format immunity" meaning DACs capable of offering similar quality for Redbook and high res.

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/page-260#post-687843

Quote

Some DAC manufacturers make their products more "immune" to sources than others. But there is no such thing as complete immunity to the source.

 

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https://www.ecdesigns.nl/en/blog/rd-powerdac

 

Apparently they might have achieved the "seemingly impossible" or something?

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/blogs/entry/812-ecdesigns-powerdac-r-preview/

 

Pretty much the same deal in terms of the PSU

 

Quote

I also tested the PowerDAC-R using a Farad 5-volt power supply and could find no difference in sound quality – this was not the case with the previous DA96ETF DAC. The PowerDAC requires only 200mA of power at 5v. The small linear power supply provided by ECDesigns has a “reservoir capacitance” of 18800uF. The low bandwidth data communication inside the DAC also contributes to power supply “immunity”.

 

And the price is right *IF* they're delivering what they promised

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/24966-ecdesigns/page/73/?tab=comments#comment-1126901

11 hours ago, hopkins said:

It should be available within a few months, and will be priced between 1100 and 1200€ excluding VAT. Shipment outside the EU will be possible.

 

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/79452-building-ultimate-nos-dac-using-tda1541a-778.html#post6495019

Quote

The S/PDIF DAPI receiver does -not- recover the S/PDIF clocks for D/A converter timing like most other S/PDIF receivers. It uses an -independent-, local low jitter clock for D/A converter timing. So S/PDIF jitter is no longer relevant.
Low Toslink bandwidth and very low DAPI parallel interface bandwidth effectively attenuate S/PDIF -noise-
So we are now free to choose whatever S/PDIF Toslink source we want without worrying about S/PDIF signal quality or S/PDIF input switch related degrading.

 

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What's your take on this kinda topic? Does it REALLY sound like the "Holy Grail" or more like Fairy Tale to you?

 

I guess that the proof is in the pudding IMHO.

 

[seeteeyou]

On 4/21/2021 at 12:50 PM, opus101 said:

I can believe that because its software-based it recovers the clock in a different way from hardware-based S/PDIF receivers. What I can't believe is that 'S/PDIF jitter is no longer relevant' - there is no other way to get the timing information to recover the clock other than from the S/PDIF stream.

 

FYI - @tapatrick posted an update here

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/24966-ecdesigns/page/74/?tab=comments#comment-1127942

 

And then we could also do something with software like MinorityClean

 

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/3063-pink-hq-minorityclean/page-79#entry55042

Quote

My DAC can measure and display jitter and with some versions of MC, it clearly showed gradual decrease of jitter with more hours of running.

You can even measure and quantify this phenomena.