L'altro giorno Stereophile sul suo sito ha postato la recensione del ultimo DAC della T+A il DAC 8 DSD.

L'articolo inizia con:

"They're so damn hard to tell apart!"

So exclaimed my longtime pal and fellow audiophile Bruce Rowley when I revealed to him that T+A Elektroakustik's new DAC 8 DSD digital-to-analog converter ($3995) had arrived for review, just after I'd finished writing up the Ayre Acoustics Codex DAC–headphone amp ($1795). Bruce had recently compared his own brand-new Codex with a DAC he'd owned for a couple years, both costing about the same but built to very different designs. He was surprised that, after carefully matching levels and working to eliminate any other variables, they sounded more alike than not, and only slightly different even after hours of listening. Technically, these were two very different animals.


Anche tutto il resto del articolo è nel stesso stile. Con la molta difficoltà riescono a distinguere vari dac tra Ayre, T+A e Benchmark. Praticamente dicono che sostanzialmente i dac suonano identicamente.

Anche il John Atkinson alle fine ammette che se la parte analogica è a posto l'unica cosa che conta sono i filtri digitali:

Measuring the T+A DAC 8 DSD, I was reminded of something David Rich, erstwhile reviewer for The Audio Critic, wrote at the beginning of this century: "Eventually all we'll be doing is writing about the sounds of digital filters." With the DAC 8 DSD's measured behavior and sound quality so dependent on which of its four digital filters is in use, it's difficult to make any absolute value judgment.

Mo, adesso dopo questa ammissione del Stereophile che si fa?