Can people define acronyms they use, particularly ones that have multiple meanings in audiophile context?

[astrotoy]

To help newbies and others, can posters define the acronyms they use.  For example,  I saw a recent post on the DAC subforum (I do know what a DAC is - I have three of them).  It said NOS R2R DAC.  I assumed they were looking for a New Old Stock DAC, but after reading a few replies, clearly it wasn't.  I knew that the DAC didn't play Reel to Reel tapes (I also have three R2R machines) and it means resistor to resistor.  So I looked up NOS in wiki and there were about 100 definitions for NOS, none other than Not One Scratch or New Old Stock that seemed to apply to an old DAC.  Anyway, I finally thought of Non Oversampling which I hope is correct.  It would helpful at least the first time the acronym is used in a post, in the OP original post or by the OP original poster, that it be defined.  

 

Thanks,  Larry

[Nikhil]

 

Larry,

 

Not exactly the correct answer to your question but Gordon Holt's "Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary" is still one of the better references available out there for me.

https://www.stereophile.com/reference/50/index.html

 

Perhaps an opportunity for Chris and the AA community to get something done for digital?

The progress that has been made in the last decade has been tremendous and a ready reckoner might be an interesting project.

 

Regards

 

 

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[StephenJK]

Within any occupation or discipline, there is a language subset of acronyms that takes an awkward mouthful of something like Visual Approach Slope Indicator into a Vasis. 

 

It was generally understood with technical writing that, with the introduction of a new acronym that it would be presented as Raise Boring Machine (RBM) followed by the bracketed abbreviation, and that abbreviation used throughout the rest of the paper. 

 

I suppose that within any discipline - in this case audio - people don't feel the need to use the longform of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). 

 

In this case, however, I do agree with you.  In any right thinking world, a Reel to Reel (R2R) has nothing to do with the design of a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC).   

[stefano_mbp]

On 7/26/2022 at 9:31 AM, astrotoy said:

NOS

Yes, NOS stays for Not Over Sampling.

R2R (like ladder) is one way to realize dacs, R2R dacs use resistor arrays, while Sigma-Delta (or Delta-Sigma) dacs use chips of different choice like Sabre, Burr Brown (Texas Instruments), AKM (Asahi Kasei Microdevices).

Typically R2R (and ladder) dacs are NOS dacs as opposite of Sigma-Delta dacs that do oversample.

Here you can read about R2R, Delta-Sigma dac … and Google is you friend …