External DAC with Connect

I assume that by analog you mean vinyl - if so, there isn't any argument to offer against a belief that this stone age tech provides for better SQ than digital once it is jazzed up with NASA engineering appearance.

This "stone age tech" has a frequency response of DC - daylight, no Nyquist Theorem required. Sonos is just a very convenient internet radio player.

But ErikM's comment about this being a forum of fanboys and help requests is dead on.

This "stone age tech" has a frequency response of DC - daylight, no Nyquist Theorem required. Sonos is just a very convenient internet radio player.

But ErikM's comment about this being a forum of fanboys and help requests is dead on.

You still haven't answered the following:

As to your claims that the switch "that will impart it's own signature to the system", if a switch can impart that much of a "signature", why spend thousands on a cable? Certainly the temperature of the room, the carpets on the floor, the accoustical treatments on the walls, the postioning of your head, etc. etc. (all things which have been proven to actually affect sound) are far and away more important than spending thousands on an effect that is so easily masked by a little ol' switch, hmmm?

Also, does the fact that the effect is so easily masked not lay waste to the claims that the difference between lamp cord and $7000 cables is "night and day" as claimed by the flowery prose in the decidedly biased audiophile press? So which is it? Is it a "night and day" difference that one can justify spending thousands and thousands of dollars on, or is it so subtle as to be masked by any and all testing methodology, no matter how carefully constructed?

Surely someone who is as versed as you in the fine art of audiophoolia will be able to answer a question posed by us brainwashed "fanboys", right? Or are you just here to call people names?

Guys, please keep things civil.

Good science does not claim to have all of the answers. New ideas are always welcome and will be incorporated into the body of knowledge -- after they are vetted. Audiophiles seem to have trouble with the vetting process. Any discussions between the science types and the audiophiles degenerates into "my dog is better than your dog", everyone goes home mad, and nothing is learned. It's a shame.

While I am not a regular, compulsive attendee at high end shows, I find most of the rooms to be as dreary as their neighbors' rooms. Each of the designers seems to have some sort of axe to grind and will optimize his (yes, I say "his" because I have never seen a female presenter at one of these shows -- and typically the guiding light is a lone wolf) design along this coordinate, making classic mistakes along other coordinates. They all have some sort of story to tell, but in my opinion the results are usually dreary. Occasionally, a team will show up with something interesting. The best teams either overtly talk about their room acoustic treatments or quietly just apply them. There haven't been any true breakthroughs in amplifier design for a while, it's a matter of attention to detail and following well established design rules. Analog vs. Digital? Regardless of the number of bits, poor grounding techniques will wreck a bunch of bits and that 24 bit design might not perform any better than a 14 bit design. And, in my observation, relatively few individuals know how to correctly set up a turntable.


From an interview with Edgar Villchur:

[indent]Lander: However long gone you may be from AR, you maintain strong views about hi-fi. In fact, you initially balked at doing this interview because you feel that many aspects of high-end audio, such as expensive cables and equipment break-in, are meaningless.

Villchur: The concluding paragraph of a talk I once gave at an Acoustical Society meeting sums that up. I'll read you part of it: "Scientific method allows investigators to form hypotheses in any way they please: out of a cold assembly of facts, intuition, or a drunken stupor....Once a hypothesis is proposed, however, it must be demonstrated rigorously. The audio discipline needs to be brought back to the world of reason."

Lander: Is there room in that world for subjectivity?

Villchur: Objective measurements in audio are primary, but they're useless unless they've been subjectively validated as predictors of musical accuracy. The validation method we used at Acoustic Research was the live-vs-recorded, or simulated live-vs-recorded, comparison. The standard I use today is set by our Woodstock chamber music concerts.[/indent]

If you have some time, read this and the companion Roy Allison interview. I bumped into Roy at a couple of shows and it was amusing when a self styled audiophile "expert" challenged him. Roy was always very polite, but there were no prisoners or hostages after Roy was done with his concise reply.

But ErikM's comment about this being a forum of fanboys and help requests is dead on.
He also referred to a third category of people.

And we are quite happy to leave you paying extreme amounts of money for something which adds nothing to the sound you are able to hear. So I guess that leaves us with a bunch of happy people . . . and some of those people have a lot more money left in their pockets. :D

Oh jgatie, you have no idea what kind of system I listen to. But I bet you've got nothing like it. For me, Sonos is just a glorified internet radio, nothing special about it. I find these heated arguments amusing. Hope you enjoy the extra money in your pockets. I imagine it lets you buy a lot of extra junk.

This thread demonstrates why the Connect Amp is such a brilliant little box. No need to tie oneself into knots about things like external DACs!
Now that I am able to use it the way it is meant to be used by leaving it on all the time, I have realised the benefit of the auto sensing line in connection on it, for a largish lcd TV and Spendor S3/5 speakers in the bedroom. Very good music from the net/NAS, with the added bonus of getting free 2 channel HT using the same speakers for TV without any effort other than stopping the music and turning the TV on.

Oh jgatie, you have no idea what kind of system I listen to. But I bet you've got nothing like it.

I don't think any of us would want to as it appears to have turned you into an arrogant *** but if it pleases you to massage your ego in that way then feel free to illuminate our lives with details of your amazing system, you obviously have some serious anxieties you need to ease, so carry on...

Nothing I need to air with you, *******. The word is blocked, but I think you get my drift.

It is just home audio, we seem to losing perspective here:).
I can understand the heat in a discussion between Darwinists and Creationists, and though this one is on similar lines, it isn't worth the fight.

Nothing I need to air with you, *******. The word is blocked, but I think you get my drift.

Nothing special then? Thought as much...