TrueMatch RMC Test

»...Stage Tec's converter is characterized by the most neutral sound of all tested products.«

This is the conclusion of a paper issued by the renowned Hochschule für Musik (Music Academy) in Detmold, Germany. The authors Michael Acker and Harald Gericke actually wanted to examine the influence of high sample rates such as 96 KHz on sound reproduction. However, the results led in a different direction: It is not just the sample rate that defines the quality of reproduction; the make and type of the used converter has a much bigger impact. Extensive listening tests designed by the authors revealed early on in the study that the different A/D and D/A converters by the various manufacturers led to partly recognizable sonic falsification.

The students investigated several criteria such as the pulse reproduction, the degree of true sound reproduction, spatiality, localization, and bass and treble reproduction. Almost 1,000 listening tests were conducted and an impressive amount of data was gathered. Both loudspeaker and headphone tests were made.

Seven converters were under investigation and Stage Tec's XMAD was rated the most neutral in the field. Due to 28-bit quantization and the resulting impressive dynamic range, microphone signals can be converted without analog pre-amplification. To keep everybody's chances equal, analog pre-amplification was used with the XMAD as well. In every test, the impact of the XMAD on the overall signal quality was so small that its output signal could not be distinguished from the original in a significant number of test situations.

All other converters – sampling at 48 KHz or even 96 KHz – would not match the original so closely.