Single box CD players with NO oversampling?

Whoa, JC, maybe you should go back and reread my post - without reading so much *into* it! I made no "claims" and offered no "opinions", bad or good, about AN DACs' performance or their partnering characteristics with other gear (neither did I claim to have heard one, which I haven't). I was simply reporting an item I remember reading from Stereophile's Industry Update section a couple of years back, which described an AN player that eschewed all filtering (and overesampling), sending the unfiltered signal on down the chain; granted, this might well have applied only to one model, and not the entire AN line. Obviously, AN didn't think that this approach would harm partnering equipment, but as I recall the article writer wasn't so sure when it came to some rare designs that might not be entirely stable to begin with.

(I fail to understand the relevance of your Goldmund amp/speaker-response analogy - an amp's stated operating bandwidth doesn't mean that it is actually generating ultrasonics in its output; besides, as I imply in my post, any speaker [and the human ear] already functions as a high frequency filter. As I understand it, any questions having to do with the wisdom of the unfiltered approach revolve around the possibility of causing a connected amp to go into oscillation, and not the mere presence of ultrasonics at the speaker - although in theory I suppose some speakers are designed so that their tweeter resonances could be over-excited if unanticipated high-level ultrasonics were present, maybe to the detriment of the sound, though probably not the speaker itself. I don't know if in fact either of these is ever really a practical problem anyone encounters, and am as sure as you are that most properly designed amps would not create a destructive mismatch in such a case anyway.)

I do not follow AN technology closely, and deliberately prefaced my short remark with the phrase "I believe" due to that. Rather than excoriating me for intentions that I do not possess and things I didn't write, you could add something educational to the thread, if you have any additional info on the subject of DAC output filtering. It is an interesting area, and I respect your knowledge and opinions on digital, which I come to with no particular preconceptions or agendas (or even an extraordinary amount of personal concern, I might add, seeing as how my own collection is mostly vinyl by far). Happy listening, whatever you listen to, Z'man. :-)

Mbonn, you just anwser your own question !

"Regarding 4x oversampling: Maybe the companies that claim "No oversampling" really mean "no more than 4x oversampling"".

But does it matter ? It's all come down to the music.

Regards

Hi Z'man,
I appreciate your threads. Your comparison on upsampling vs. non-upsampling was a fine piece of work. Didn't mean to come across as defensive.

The Audio Note DAC's do not use digital filters but do use custom analogue filters. In fact, the quality of these filters improves as you move up the line.
They all use the Analogue Devices AD1865 18 bit chip, they have no optical link and use these custom tailored analogue filters to roll off enough of the carrier frequency at 44.1 KHz to render it inaudible.
In addition, from the DAC 2 up they use the patented interface matching transformer coupling curcuit in varying quality as you move up DAC levels. Many actually using transformer coupling to the output stage instead of capacitor coupling.

There have been previous threads about the distinction between upsampling and oversampling. I think if you stick to players that claim ONLY oversampling, and not upsampling, you will have dramatically narrowed the field to the kinds of players you (Mbonn) seem to be looking for. I would very much like to know what you find out in your searching, and hopefully listening, as I have become skeptical of upsampling (interpolation) based on my experiences with the Perp. Tech. stuff. When companies like ARC, Meridian and Muse decide to skip the oversampling/interpolation game, it makes me wonder whether this is not a major industry band-aid to improve lack-luster digital performance until something better comes along (maybe SACD).......