Quote Originally Posted by Feanor View Post

I attribute these improvements to a greater freedom from grain and sonic crud. Get rid of the hash and the music is liberated. Where does the hash come from? Possibly ...
  • Jitter (if a digital source)
  • Digital filtering, e.g. "pre-echo"
  • Opamp noise and/or negative feedback
  • RFI/EMI


But the result, IMO, is much of the "harshness" attributed to digital. Minimize the harsh and you'll find your CDs sound a lot better than you ever thought they could. This isn't the first case in my experience that improving my reproduction chain, (not just the DAC), as made CDs relatively listenable that I'd previously figured were a sonic write-off.
I like your conclusions about what this DAC is not doing...not adding digital grit to the sound stream. I am gonna have to look into this one.