I'm assuming this is going into a FAQ somewhere, Tony?

I dunno if it falls under the umbrella of an Empeg FAQ...

And I'm still not sure if I've gotten to the root of my original question yet, which is: How different would these different DAC implementations sound? How different can I expect a ripped WAV file played on my PC to sound from a consumer CD player? And in exactly what ways would it sound different? I've seen a lot of technical details of what the implementations do (which is great, don't get me wrong, that was part of my question), but nothing so far that says "Compared to a 16-bit DAC, a 1-bit DAC will sound yada yada yada..."

I think one of my main questions has been answered which is: Does a consumer CD player attempt to smooth out the sound at all? In other words, does it attempt to alter the sound a little bit, rather than just reproducing the bits as accurately as possible? I think the answer to that question is no: A CD player tries to reproduce the bits with as much detail and resolution as possible, without any deliberate shaping or smoothing of the output.

I was trying to get at the root of a nagging feeling that ripped files sound harsher than the original CDs. But I have no common frame of reference equipment on which to play both pieces. Once it's in WAV format, the CD player won't play it. And if I burn it back onto a CD, then it's just the identical thing again. I was thinking that consumer CD players might be discarding certain data that the ripped version doesn't. From what I've read so far, this doesn't seem to be the case, so any harshness I'm noticing is the result of the equalization, accuracy, and response curves of the playback equipment. If this is true, then anything (other than compression artifacts) that I'm hearing in a rip should be correctable by careful equalization.

Still, definitely keep the information on the DACs coming, this is great stuff.

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Tony Fabris