why so sarcastic for cheaper better measuring dacs ? what makes bartok better than those cheaper measuring dacs ?
This the silliest discussion. And an even sillier review by someone angry because they couldnāt take the unit apart. And then a member who doesnāt own and probably canāt afford a Bartok posts a review that he clearly doesnāt even understand to validate a negative position he had before joining the group. Why is he here? Oh, and thereās no discussion beside āun hearable ultrasonic noiseā, of how the Bartok sounds. Really, the only valid measurement.
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Quite, I have to agree with you in general. However it has always been the policy here to keep the forum open to all comers and for ownership not to be a criterion for membership. So these kind of topics will get posted however irrelevant or invalid they may seeem. It is then necessary to respond or to seem to be either in acceptance of the views or to appear incapable of refuting them.
In regard to the question:
In circumstances such as this it becomes the type of question whose need to be asked will produce an answer that is unlikely to be understood by the person posing the question as it depends upon a full understanding of the product, its aims, the company that makes it and their values as well as experiencing its performance in reality.
Maybe it is unfortunate that threads like this exist but perhaps that is preferable to our becoming a closed group.
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Pete,
A nice response. In retrospect it was far too controversial and should have been kept to myselfā¦ so I will apologize to all and move on.
Thanks.
Reading an audiophile debate about measurements is like watching people dance about architecture. 
I continue to prefer listening to music on my Bartok.
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Oh no! Iām going to have to go sell my BartĆ³k now! I should have measured before buying. Iām a fool! I hear Topping makes good measuring DACs. I think Iāll go with one of those. 
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In fact, it would be interesting to hear a comment from dCS in this regard. I do not believe that the owners of Bartok are not interested in this. This does not mean that my Bartok sounds bad, but we are just discussing different things here. Why not discuss this here as well.
Even with objective measurements, thereās always a risk that someone will use some inconsequential numbers to try and knock dCS āoff itās perchā so to speak.
Like the above suggestion that thereās an audible 6dB channel imbalance because of differences in the measured distortions at noise floor. Really??? 
First ask yourself if you can even reliably recognise 3% distortion, let alone channel differences of 0.0002% at the noise floor!! (see https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/06/blind-test-results-part-ii-is-high.html)
Fortunately, dCS products are built on sound engineering (pun unintended), with carefully calculated compromises to achieve their specific goals, so we donāt need to shy away from objective discussions. 
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So is it ok to have one channel having difference in distortion of around 8db ? Is it not design problem ? How it is a āsound engineeringā ? Even a small ferrite clip when added to a usb cable has a clear audible difference even without any change in measurements and here we are saying the 8db difference in channels of a $17500 dac is inconsequential ? How a better measuring dac irrespective of itās cost can magically sound poorer than a poor measuring dac, does anyone here has any "technical explanation "or just same long tangential posts full of subjective jargon ? Atleast someone should explain the reason the difference of 8db in distortion of two channels ? Why so much evasive replies ? Are you going to block this thread ? Is everyone here not engineer ?
Sure looks like youāre parroting some of the points made by others in the Bartok Measurement thread on AudioScienceReview
The folks on ASR are going to laugh themselves silly if you claim to be able to hear 6dB channel difference at -110dB 
.
If you prefer the sound from a cheaper better measuring DAC, then by all means, knock yourself out, enjoy! No one here said anything about other DACs sounding poorer at all.
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As you mention engineering and scientific rigour. Do you have statistical evidence that this 8db difference occurs systematically in Bartok?
As already mentioned in my previous post, all replies are evasive and tangential. Is there any technical person from DCS who can explain the reason for different behavior of two channels or still there will be repeated reply of 8db difference being inconsequential for a $17500 product ?
Can you explain what you see as evasive about my question? I am merely asking whether this was a one off issue (which would be inconsequential) or whether it is a systematic issue (which might warrant looking into further).
You do not seem open to legitimate questions
Are you from DCS ?
Once again you havenāt answered the question posed by one of the members here.
Please will you now stop trolling ?
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No, just a happy dCS user
What I have not answered ? And what I need to answer ? The discrepancy of measurements between two channels is there in both stereophile and golden sound measurements. I only asked what is the reason for that and even after 30+ posts nobody is able to answer. How it is trolling ? Is it not deliberate to not to answer ? If for $17500 dac to have 8db difference in distortion figures between two channels is inconsequential then are people paying for fancy case work and looks ? Here is a screen shot from DCS own website. Read carefully and repeatedly the second para. How difference in two channels helps in that what is written in second para ? If that everything is inconsequential then why to spend $17500 ? Better you answer these questions. I donāt think it is trolling in anyway.
Maybe we can make it more apparent this way. @rkt31 kindly refer to this article on Wikipedia:
Decibel is a logarithmic scale. The table on the right shows for example, that -90 dB equals a power ratio of 0.000 000 001. Iām with what @Anupc and @PAR writeā¦
Exactly thatās what I am saying. If few dbs difference in distortion figure is inconsequential then for what we are paying $1750 for ? Isnāt it as simple and logical as it can be ?
there are also expensive tube devices, I wonder how they are measured?