There’s yet another thread about MQA on AA, in the Critic’s Corner section, with responses from some including John Atkinson. His comment drew my attention as I wasn’t sure if he was correct. Here’s the relevant post…
“I wish Charley were still around to discuss this, because I wanted to point
out that as different as the PS Audio and Benchmark DACs are, in almost
every way, there is one significant factor where they actually behave
virtually identically. That is in the behavior of their digital reconstruction
filters. Could it be possible that with two modern DACs, the sonic signature
of this filter outweighs everything else?”
The full thread starts here AA Thread . Note, I am not trying to start an MQA discussion here.
I check the AA now and then - JA is correct, at least as far as that post goes.: The DS’s digital reconstruction filter is a (very) steep brickwall filter that is at -144dB by the Nyquist frequency - i.e. no aliasing and not a half band filter or other shortcut. It’s also as flat as possible over the pass band (no ripples.) Above and beyond that the DS uses the steepest filter possible (with reasonable resources) to allow the widest passband. I can’t verify that the Benchmark DAC is exactly the same, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they made similar decisions for similar reasons.
However (despite Jim Austin’s article) I’d maintain that the DS and the Benchmark DAC sound different. But the thread that the AA thread that you mention was “excised” from was that very discussion.
The Stereophile reviewer connected the DS through the Benchmark’s analog input jacks and then switched between the Benchmark’s USB and analog inputs to compare the two DAC’s (). I think this fundamentally flawed methodology led to the conclusion that the two DAC’s sound the same.
Your comment regarding the flawed methodology may very well be true but please bear in mind Jim Austin used that method after he compared them independently and found they (in his opinion) sounded the same. I’m not arguing one point or another just the fact that he did initially compare them separately.
Your comment regarding the flawed methodology may very well be true but please bear in mind Jim Austin used that method after he compared them independently and found they (in his opinion) sounded the same. I’m not arguing one point or another just the fact that he did initially compare them separately.
Makes one wonder, why on earth would he resort to this flawed methodology, especially after he compared them independently. It is silly to begin with, and even sillier to do so after a separate comparison was done. Did he not trust his ears the first time?
). I think this fundamentally flawed methodology led to the conclusion that the two DAC’s sound the same.