I had mentioned in an earlier post that when a particular piece of gear opens up the sound enough to hear something you hadn't before, it likely did that not by digging deeper into the music, but by hiding what's there less. And that's an important distinction.
I have been guilty of presenting this phenomena in the wrong light when speaking about DACs. It's an easy error to make. When you're trying to explain to someone how one hears more of what's in the recording, it's certainly easier to suggest hidden information has been uncovered, like finding buried treasure, than it is to say your new DAC hides less of what's already there. But, that's exactly what's happening.
Here's the thing. The information trapped on our discs is always there, waiting to be played. Even the best electronics obfuscates, to some degree, low level details–like room acoustics, reverberation fields, and upper harmonics. The challenge for any product designer is to build equipment that hides as little as possible.
And just when you find the piece of gear that let's it all through you have to contend with the ever-flawed loudspeaker that can't reproduce it, or the intrusive room that clouds that which you've worked so hard to achieve.
It's never easy, but always worth it.
