06-17-2021, 09:18 AM
(06-16-2021, 04:26 PM)Gate45 Wrote: I was wrong, I hadn't considered the noise that is added to the data by switching between 3 sets of switches.
As I said in my response to @WuBai, this is the claim that needs explaining. No-one has described any way in which noise can alter the information held in the digital description of the information that is transmitted as the signal.
In an analogue system, the signal is the information, noise degrades the signal and therefore the degrades the information.
In a digital system, the information is put into a code that is transmitted as a signal, noise can degrade the signal, but as long as the code is not degraded, it can still be decoded to reveal the information. If the noise affects the signal so much as to change the code, then the code will no longer be capable of being decoded and the information is lost.
What is required here is a plausible method by which the code can be changed by noise added to the signal in such a way that the information described by the code is altered in a coherent way. By coherent, I mean that the alteration must fit in the context of the information transmitted such that the decoder still reads it as a valid message - not something random noise is likely to be able to do. Anything incoherent will actually break the code rendering it unreadable.
So, I entirely believe that you do hear a difference, but I think the most likely cause of the difference is one of the well known and explained sources of listening error to which our brains are prone, and is not down to some as yet unexplained mechanism by which the data in a digital signal can be altered by noise.
At the end of the day though, the mechanism is irrelevant. If having more switches between your disc and your DAC causes you to have a poorer listening experience, then you need to reduce the number of switches regardless of why you hear a difference.
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Robert
Robert