Preamps built Into DACs

Steve, how would that work? You could get me a "live in the bluenote recording" and see if I can hear what table three was ordering on track 5 at 3 minutes 12 seconds into the track (two dry martinis)? Would be interesting, but not methdologically sound, because it does not account for difference in sensitivity of the hearing of the observer. One of us may simply have better hearing.

Ed - I think this is possible. I have some old tracks that recently I noticed new lyrics and background singers that I never heard before. The challenge will be to distinguish the lyrics and understand them.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Understanding lyrics is a particular type of human skill. Some people are just better at it than others. Seems like an extremely poor way of testing how resolving a system is.

Agree. Only works with the same observer listening on two different systems. Even then I think the experiment is flawed because you could have a system that simply is more clear in the frequency range of human voice, which could be happen with boor bass response. for example on a set of electrostats with poor low frequency response this may be easier than on a true full range system.

Nonetheless, just for kicks, I'd be happy to try. If you set up a file transfer (you have my email), I'll give it a shot. Keep in mind I am not a native English speaker though!