Hello Srajan:
Interesting review on the new LessLoss DAC. I enjoyed your discussion on 'echoic fill'. I too have noticed it with various tube gear I've auditioned in stores during my travels even though I didn't exactly call it that. It does describe the effect rather well I think. Do you have any theories on what exactly is causing it? Given how precisely you've described the "action" as you call it, you might have some ideas? I'd be very curious to hear them.
Anton
It's one thing to come up with a decent description for an observation, quite another to determine cause. While it behaves like increasing a room's reverberation time, the gear obviously can't affect that. Hearing lengthier rather than shorter recorded decays requires a superior S/NR so that the faintest trails don't fall below the noise floor. But what this behaviour does is let you hear less of the recorded decays because it somehow 'fills in' silent space around the notes with what I called 'connective tissue'. I'm afraid that while I can hear it and described in in those terms to illustrate this texturizing action, I don't have a clear grasp on the mechanics behind it. Excessive 2nd-order harmonics do a similar thing but I very much doubt that was the case here. In short, your question rather exceeds my pay grade. I simply don't know. You'll have to talk to my boss. If I just knew who that was -:)
Srajan
