Not happy even with a lavry a/d.

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Abbey, you might just be making the hidden point I was heading towards. Nobody can hear jitter problems or distortion in any half decently designed modern converter.

Aliasing was a genuine problem, with older converters and poorly implemented ones. It shouldn't be with proper oversampling and digital filter design.

So what is the fraction of a dB amplitude difference that the best human ears can hear in a frequency response? I expect it has some sort of curve like the Fletcher-Munson thing.
 
Null tests for digital audio gear are a waste of time.
If we are talking about a sine wave AD conversion through different converters, of course we will see a difference between any two subjects.
There will be phase, frequency and group delay differences, even if we record through the same converters on different days under different environmental conditions.
But lets say you fire up an Apogee, Mytek and a Lynx converter. Record the same thing through each, diff the files and look at the difference.
What did you just measure?
Phase deviation?
Brownian motion?
Frequency response deviation?
What you will have left over will likely be inaudible, and unless you zoom in, invisible.

A similar experiment would be to mount a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera like a Fujifilm XT3 on a solid tripod.
Take 2 pictures in a row of the same thing.
Diff those two pictures. Super easy to do in Photoshop by loading both pictures on layers and setting the top one to 'difference' compositing.
Guess what, even in RAW, you will see a difference due to thermal noise and other environmental factors.

I use nulling all the time when setting up multiple mics on guitar amps or drums. Great way to verify phase coherence of two sources. But not to objectively compare two pieces of gear.
 
I trully don't believe that at all.
If there's something that is not nice is vintage digital.

Digital converters improved a lot of the years and most converters nowadays are quite good and miles better than anything released before 2000 for sure
Someone told me about RADAR a couple months ago and the trip down the rabbit hole was an adventure. The RADAR was originally distributed by Otari as a replacement to tape machines. The company went through a lot of trouble to make a durable, well built, and easy to use machine. The nice things about these units is that they are calibrated to give you headroom, so 0dB on the vu meter is around -14dB or so in the digital domains. The converters are some of the best out there, including the originals. Even Eddie Krammer was impressed when he used one due to the tape machine at the studio needing a tech. Obviously the RADAR II converters were even better and every generation that followed with 24 bit and now as high as 192K.
 
It's great don't get me wrong but something still sounds funky to me.

What are you all's favorite a/d for ultimate transparency?
I'm sure someone has mentioned it already, but I think the top of the line Prism Sound converter is your best bet of you want transarency. It should at least be quite a bit less coloured than the Lavry, and highly musical. To my ears, the "cheap" Prism converters such as the Atlas and Titan sound the same as their flagship, with the selling point of the most expensive model being endless modularity more than ultimate sound reproduction compared to its cheaper siblings, but I could be wrong. In fact, I am most likely wrong. That's what I've heard at least. Good luck!
 
Try the Hilo, OP. A lot of people whose ears I trust say it's the most transparent out there. It won't excite stuff however, so you will need to get that sauce from your other gear
 
Someone told me about RADAR a couple months ago and the trip down the rabbit hole was an adventure. The RADAR was originally distributed by Otari as a replacement to tape machines. The company went through a lot of trouble to make a durable, well built, and easy to use machine. The nice things about these units is that they are calibrated to give you headroom, so 0dB on the vu meter is around -14dB or so in the digital domains. The converters are some of the best out there, including the originals. Even Eddie Krammer was impressed when he used one due to the tape machine at the studio needing a tech. Obviously the RADAR II converters were even better and every generation that followed with 24 bit and now as high as 192K.
yeah I heard crazy good things about them. Daniel Lanoise still uses them I think and his stuff sounds stellar and timeless. Big fan
 
It's great don't get me wrong but something still sounds funky to me.

What are you all's favorite a/d for ultimate transparency?
In the past we chose a Presonus firepod over a UA Apollo mostly because the Apollo' emulations were a distraction and counter-productive. Conversion concerns never entered our thoughts as we had access to SSL and other convertors for client work. I guess we made due with what was available.

However today... we found the Crookwood Multi-DAD and are sold purchase pending our build progress. Modular mastering level conversion aligns with our needs. Big upgrade from the Firepod we have been using for 15 years.

Wall
 
It's great don't get me wrong but something still sounds funky to me.

What are you all's favorite a/d for ultimate transparency?
I've had Lavry Blue in the past, and was really happy. Now using Merging Technologies AD8DP and DA8P which are performing beautifully in my setup.
 
I used to have a Lavry Black DA years back and I replaced it with RME ADI2 Pro which sounded significantly better....
 

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