A quote from your own post, "This applies to both Mark4's claim and yours in stating".
Do you mean presented as a claim? Please make up your mind.
How was the listening (since it's audio, ultimately one's ears should be involved) comparison carried out? Details of the setup please.
Do you happened to know the age of that 50%? Knowing that you aren't likely to answer, those are very young demographics, not the retiree demographics.
Sure. Thanks.
When dealing with a DAC that is capable of holding distortion artifacts below 140dB it is hard to imagine that any manner of input source, being physically reproduced with peaks just under the upper limits of this DAC's dynamic range, would generate distortion artifacts above the threshold of human hearing, even by the most sensitive subjects available. 140dB of clean dynamic range appears simply too clean under any of the variant circumstances expressed.
IMO there exists distortion mechanisms in sigma-delta dac's resulting from high frequency artifacts that end up in the audio band, whereupon testing hasn't been developed to degree yet capable to reveal its auditory significance.
"Notwithstanding previous posts, there is a distinction between "statements of opinion" and "statements of fact". A claim can be a "statement of fact" or a "statement of opinion". "A fact is a statement that can be proven true or false. An opinion is an expression of a person's feelings that cannot be proven". The "claim" by Markw4 appears a statement of opinion, yours is presented aa a statement of fact. At issue is if harmonic distortions and other artifacts, as visually depicted in measurements, can be heard. Secondly, if the testing encompasses all manner of noise (as not signal), as being identifiable or otherwise, as to support the conclusion that Markw4's "statement of opinion" is false."
Answers can be reasoned from the post you just responded to as per the above... not the one you directed to. I will leave you time to reason out the answers for yourself...
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It is also considered that the difference could be the use of independant DAC's for each channel in the SMSL SO100 as compared to a single common DAC in the SMSL SU-9n (and Topping). Both SMSL's use the same OPA1612 output devices which narrows down differences more toward DAC differences. An alternative thought is that unknown technical advancements have been incorporated into the SO100, as I believe the SO100 is newer.
That would seem consistent with what John Westlake said about IC substrate-coupled noise in dac chips as a significant SQ factor. He claimed it was his primary justification for dual mono dac chip designs.
Also appears to consistent with what he said AKM told him during his factory visit and demo of the two chip AK4191/AK4498 solution.
You moved from ordinary vs extraordinary claim discussion to veracity of claim discussion, then to universal truth discussion and then onto never mind about what you wrote on previous posts. That's a lot of goalpost movements. That's not how debate works. You are just arguing for the sake of argument.
You haven't answered my question on post #274, "Is my claim an extraordinary one?"
As I've mentioned numerous times before, the persistence of shill posting is astonishingly high among those who are in or affiliated with audio business. As the saying goes, business is business. 💲💰
I just pointed out a difference in measurements that seems like a design flaw in SMSL SU-9n and which may well attribute to perceived sound quality. Dual mono DAC should be slighty better even technically but in most cases there are shared elements: grounding, clocking, power supply, Vref buffer op-amp (if duals are used) etc. What I would agree is "straw clutching" is the dismissal of measured differences in favor of some unmeasurable stuff just to keep the illusion alive.
In all fairness, if someone would refer to the measurements, you've mentioned, as possible explanations for audible differences, it would be most likely criticized as "straw clutching" as well.
So far it is just a discussion about differences (including hearing mechanism) and concludent proposals of hypothesis. As usual, corrobation from sensory experiments is needed before accepting any of these hypothesis as probable explanations.
Question remains, if all discussions should be abandoned if no experimental corrobation is available?
So far, even agreement on the design of the sensory experiments seems to be not given; see for example the posts in which "double blind" and "level matching" were mentioned as if it would guarantee correct results; after all these years it should be different.
Maybe, but at least the difference in measurements is based on objective observation so we all have a common ground for further discussion.
For those that like to demand measurements, maybe go back at take a look at post #86 in this thread. https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...quality-between-some-dacs.386815/post-7039985 ...Every day that post is getting more likes by people who have seen exactly what it talks about.
The other things is that we all know that "measurements" is a euphemism for one thing, steady-state FFTs. Scott Wurcer referred to the pic below as a measurement. But some here would not accept it as such because it doesn't give a figure-of-merit number that can be used to compare with a different number from some other 'measurement.' How would you know if the distortion residual below is better or worse measuring than some other distortion residual that looks a little different?
The other things is that we all know that "measurements" is a euphemism for one thing, steady-state FFTs. Scott Wurcer referred to the pic below as a measurement. But some here would not accept it as such because it doesn't give a figure-of-merit number that can be used to compare with a different number from some other 'measurement.' How would you know if the distortion residual below is better or worse measuring than some other distortion residual that looks a little different?
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When there are only FFT measurements, some people start to judge devices without knowing anything about how the devices sound. FFTs become the whole story about quality.
OTOH, when audibility reports come out first, then FFTs are examined, some people may proclaim something to the effect, "Of course, it was predicted in the spectral lines."
However, if one looks at the predictive value of FFTs before anyone listens, it turns out there is only limited correlation.
So what's the problem with FFTs becoming the story? Its: WYSIATI
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/02/conclusions
OTOH, when audibility reports come out first, then FFTs are examined, some people may proclaim something to the effect, "Of course, it was predicted in the spectral lines."
However, if one looks at the predictive value of FFTs before anyone listens, it turns out there is only limited correlation.
So what's the problem with FFTs becoming the story? Its: WYSIATI
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/02/conclusions
Just another empty supposition. I dont find myself thinking of FFTs as I listen.
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When people have an audio device in front of them then there is the option to both listen and measure. When people don't have a device to listen to and all they have is FFT analyzer data, then what? The brain automatically constructs the best story it can from the available data. By default (which is to say, without effortful intervention of system 2), the story is believed. That is the default mode of thinking most of the time even if the available data is incomplete and or of poor quality. The links to WYSIATI should make it clear.
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