Back in the ’70s, Japanese consumer electronics giants sold hi-fi based on so-called ‘tech specs’. What began as a trend became an obsession, each new turntable being offered with lower claimed wow, flutter and rumble as ‘proof’ that it was superior to the one before. Indeed, some brands took to running ads highlighting the measured performance of components, with straplines to the effect of ‘let the facts speak for themselves’. Back in hi-fi’s boom years, such was the way of the world…
Then, in the early ’80s, along came Compact Disc. Given that CD players – at least when put together properly – had fairly similar measured performance, manufacturers had to find new ways to capture the buying public’s imagination. And one of these was to highlight the bit depth and oversampling rate of a machine’s built-in DAC.