Tam Lin

That is absurd. Do you mean to say that you can't recognize the voice of a family member or a friend on the other end of a phone line?

Because digital audio has a fixed dynamic range that is established by the sample width, every sample bit occupied by dither is one less bit that can carry the data.

@yamamoto2002 1. Dither is pseudo-random noise that is added to the signal. The probability distribution doesn't matter. Noise is noise. 2. I've done the experiment and I attribute the differences I hear to jitter.

It always bothered me that, whereas analog recordings strive to minimize added noise, digital recordings purposely add noise. It’s called dither. They say it is necessary and can’t be removed. It is used to mask quantization noise. Quantization noise is strongly correlated with the signal which makes it plainly audible in certain circumstances, such as listening to computer generated test tones. However, with recorded acoustic instruments and voices, the ambient noise in the venue and the self-noise of the microphones and electronics leading up to the ADC is usually sufficient to decorrelate the quantization noise. Up-Down Sampling (UDS) removes dither, which manifests as a gritty sound from the tweeter. I initially implemented UDS using Foobar and two instances of a resampler plugin. The first instance resampled to a high multiple of the CD rate, e.g. 2.8224M; the second instance resampled the output of the first instance to a rate my DAC accepted, e.g. 176.4K. The process worked better than expected. I now use a custom plugin that can be configured on the fly to use different resampling rates and methods. How it works: Up-sampling interpolates new samples that are inserted between the existing samples. In the process, dither loses its identity as random noise because the unique dither from each existing sample is now interpolated into each added sample. Down-sampling uses a low-pass filter to remove the audio spectra above the Nyquist frequency before decimating. That spectrum includes the dither. Thus, dither is removed and the music is resampled to a higher-than-CD rate, which reduces settling time and quantization noise while moving the images further away from the signal, which relaxes the demands on the reconstruction filter.

Look at Cardas Golden Reference, it fits you requirements precisly. Current used prices are very reasonable.

Audiophiles often own crap audio systems that don't sound like live music. Apparently, that's not their objective. Some audiophile even brag that they never listen to live music.

How about the person who engages in music as a musician? The people who create the music that you audiophiles listen to.

Up-sampling reduces the size of the inter-sample step, which reduces the setting time. Settling time is a well know issue with multi-bit PCM DACs but if also effects delta-sigma DACs as it relates to the I/V performance. In addition to the above, I use resampling to reduce dither noise. Dither is added to mask quantization noise. That noise is a problem in the mathematics of sampling theory and certain laboratory tests, but not in the real world of recording acoustic sounds with microphones. The ambient noise in the recording venue plus the self-noise of the microphones and their pre-amps is sufficient to decouple the quantization noise. The range of quantization noise is +/- 1/2 LSB. The range of TPD dither is +/- 3 LSB. Although dither, by itself, is considered inaudible, its effect on the signal is not. Every bit that carries the inaudible dither noise is one less bit available to carry the audible signal. My de-dither process first resamples to 2.8226M or 3.072M, depending on the input ample rate, and then to the highest rate my PCM DAC will accept. Just resampling from 44.1K to 176.4K is beneficial, but going up to the DSD rate and back down effectively homogenizes the dither noise.

Audio Note Kit 1.2. There was one recently offered on eBay for $350. The DAC is very good out of the box and has plenty of room for improvement if you are handy. The mods I've done to mine, Duelund caps and 192K S/PDIF, were less than $280.

I suggest you forget the speakers and get some good headphones. Years ago I had a 31' diameter circular living room with adobe walls and brick floor. The slap echo was bad but the bass suck-out at 50Hz was worse.

If that's true, why do you use a USB connected DAC? USB Audio is not bit perfect.