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Harry Lavo
 
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Default What happened to perpetual technologies?

"Rusty Boudreaux" wrote in message
...
"Mkuller" wrote in message
news:58Pub.246217$HS4.2182771@attbi_s01...
Snake oil is more than a "tad" harsh to call AA. Mark owned

the company and
had a very talented designer in the days when digital was

evolving. They
produced excellent products at great prices and their DTI

jitter buster was a
breakthrough product that is still in use today by people using

separates.

That may be true but I still think they weren't totally honest
with some of their products. There should be no need for jitter
correction in CD audio as has been pointed out by Dick Pierce and
others that CD's can't have jitter. If a jitter buster helps
then something is wrong with the CD player.

Another example is a quote by Tom Nousaine in this newsgroup a
few weeks ago:

"I'm guessing that my experience with an Audio Alchemy outboard
DAC might be
illustrative. Using that device for a level matched test I
discovered that the
output of the AA was +10 dB compared to the analog output of a
Marantz CD-63
player.

Inside the case there was a jumper with 0 dB and +10 dB settings.
Moving the
jumper to the 0 dB position and, guess what, the output was still
+4 dB. So to
an end-user the device always delivered a higher output level.

I'm guessing that this kind of level de-match accounts for
practically all, if
not exactly all, of the reported cd-player sound differences."


Well, if this is your belief as well as Tom's guess, then perhaps this will
persuade you otherwise.

I use an AA DTI Pro jitter buster. Had it wired into a Proceed PDP using
balanced cable and then into Aux two on my preamp next to Aux one, direct
feed from the cd player. Identical cables used. The outputs were matched
within .5db on all three cd players I used over the decade with this
arrangement in my system.

Compared to my Phillips 880, the sound was the same but more transparent (it
should be since the PDP was 18 bit and the DTI Pro featured noise-shaping
specifically designed for 18-bit making it sound like 20-bit, while the 880
was designed at a time when 16 bit multibit DACs were not particularly
linear below -80db).

Compared to my Marantz 63SE (one-bit pcm), the sound was slightly more
neutral (the Marantz a tad "lean") and more natural sounding and about the
same in perceived transparency.

Compared to my Sony C222ES, the sound was very similar but had a slightly
more dynamic, warmer, and more natural sounding bass, and about the same
transparency.

On a casual level they can all "sound the same". In fine detail, they all
have subtle differences. So if the AA DAC had higher output and people did
not level adjust, then that may explain some specific results with that DAC.
But it is a big leap from there to saying that all DACs were liked better
because they had higher output. There were other things at work, especially
in the early days when outboard DACs first became popular...different DAC
chips, better power supplies, better analog outputs, etc.