[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"Audio_Empire" wrote in message
...

Of course there are. Electrolytic capacitors are de riguer for power
supplies and the like. Couldn't do without them. But a mil-spec 100
microFared, 50 Volt electrolytic capacitor is the same 100 microFared,
50 Volt electrolytic capacitor as it's commercial equivalent. It just
has been tested (and guaranteed) over a wider temperature range and
under rigorous vibration and other other environmental tests that the
commercial version of the cap hasn't been subjected too.

Not always. In the equipment I worked with electrolytic capacitor usually
meant something with tantalium in it. While small tantalium capacitors are
common, finding parts of 1,000 uF and up are not very common.

Sure, good engineering will result in better sound, better reliability,
and greater longevity in hi-fi gear as in any other manufactured goods,
but is there really anything in an MSB Diamond Platinum DAC IV plus,
for
instance, to justify its $40,000+ price tag?

Or a DAC costing $4,000 or $400, or even more than some costs $40.

Well, now you're going too far. Many DACs DO sound different (and some
better) than others - even in a bias controlled test.

Yes. In this point in life, the point where DAC chips are sonically
transparent lies about a dollar a channel or less.

For example, I ended up with a motherboard sound facility that produced no
output, so an external card was the easiest solution. For less than $30 I
obtained an audio interface that per independent tests was the equal of an
audio interfact that cost me $399 in 2001.

However, my
point is that these differences are not necessarily tied to the unit's
cost. I.E. a $4000 DAC doesn't, by virtue of its cost, necessarily
sound better than a $400 DAC. In my experience, however, DACs
utilizing stereo D/A chips generally "sound" better (and by that I
mean that there are aspects of their audio performance, such as
soundstage or bass presentation that they do do differently than other
designs) than do DACs that "time-share" a single D/A converter chip
and those utilizing dual-differential D/As can sound better yet, but
I've found no hard-and-fast rules there, either.

Your distaste for the kind of DBT that professionals use is well known.

I dunno about that. There is good evidence to suggest that there has
been
considerable progress in the price/performance of speakers, and that high
end speakers are just as overpriced as high end speaker cables.

I do know about "that" and I can tell you that if you can find a pair
of speakers that are as transparent and as accurate as the M-L CLXs
for less money or if you can find another pair of speakers that can
produce the sheer volume of a symphony orchestra in full song, or
pressurize a room with low end like the Wilson Alexandra XLFs AT ANY
PRICE, I'll eat my hat! Because as many high-end speakers as I have
heard, I haven't come across such a puppy!

Given your track record with blind, level matched tests, how would you know?

Sure, the proliferation of computer modeling has narrowed the gap in
performance of a lot of mid-priced speakers where many of them sound
as good as or perhaps better than so-called state-of-the-art designs
of just a few years ago. But the really high-end speakers do things
that lesser speakers simply can't do, and you don't need a DBT to hear
it either. It is immediately apparent when one is in the presence of
such designs.

True for subwoofers, but even there the price performance has migrated
downward. In the 1980s there simply were no subwoofer drivers with 30 mm
Xmax. Today, one can obtain such a thing and get change from $400. Of
course with the usual markups and accessories such as built-in power amp,
the street price of the installable system is still $2,000. But that is
chump change by high end audio standards.