Why might a brighter or more detailed change actually be a step backward?

What he says is going on

The mechanism he gives is noise floor modulation. Random RF noise mixes with the music inside analog electronics, so "the noise pumps up and down with the wanted music signal" Head-Fi, Jan 2016. He says the brain cannot separate that noise from the instruments, so "the rich sound of the sax becomes brighter and less like a sax" and timbre variation is suppressed Head-Fi, Jun 2014.

He says this passes for detail. In 2014 he wrote that "a superficially brighter sound, giving the impression of better detail resolution, is often distortion" Head-Fi, Apr 2014. In 2016 he wrote that "its easy to get confused by distortion - noise floor modulation, can give false impressions of more detail resolution" Head-Fi, Mar 2016.

He gives a second reason, which concerns the rest of the system: a brighter change can be a distortion that offsets a system that is too warm. In October 2017 he gave the example of a system that is "too dull" where "some noise floor modulation to make it a bit brighter" improves the balance, "but actually you're making it worse" miceblue425 47:43. In 2024 he described a system that is "too rich, too warm and soft sounding", where a distortion that sharpens the sound makes it more balanced but leaves you going "round and round in a circle" The Source AV 24:37, and he made the same point in a podcast published October 2026 (recording date not stated) Part-Time Audiophile 6:40. He describes the mirror case too, adding softness or warmth to offset a bright system, in 2018 and in an interview published October 2026 (recording date not stated) Head-Fi, Apr 2018HiFi Buys 42:43.

By period

2014 to 2015 (Hugo; Dave thread from mid-2015)

In April 2014, on the Hugo thread, he defined transparency by variation: a change that makes the sound more variable is more transparent "even if it sounds, in tonal balance, darker or smoother and superficially less impressive" Head-Fi, Apr 2014. In May 2014 he said "Some people actually like the sound of noise floor modulation, because it sounds brighter and superficially more detailed" Head-Fi, May 2014. In June 2014 he said ADC noise-shaper noise in high sample rate recordings causes noise floor modulation, which "adds a hardness to the SQ, or to some ears sounding brighter", and that some people prefer it because it "superficially creates the impression of more detail" Head-Fi, Jun 2014. Later that month, after repeating an optical versus coaxial test on Hugo, he called optical "noticeably warmer, smoother" and said "the hardness can easily be confused with more detail resolution and impact" Head-Fi, Jun 2014. In October 2014 he attributed USB cable differences to RF noise entering Hugo's ground plane: "More RF noise, more noise floor modulation, which makes it sound brighter." He added "So my advice is to be careful if it sounds brighter!" Head-Fi, Oct 2014.

On the Dave thread in June 2015 he said that with digital hardness "the aggression gets superficially confused with detail resolution" Head-Fi, Jun 2015. In November 2015, describing Dave's development, he said people's idea of transparent is often over-emphasized detail "giving a hyper sound quality but no musicality", and that Dave's smoothness "was not a colouration or error" but came from reduced distortion, most notably noise floor modulation Head-Fi, Nov 2015.

2016 (mostly Dave)

In January 2016 he wrote that "many listeners hear the brightness as more detail resolution, and so think it sounds better" Head-Fi, Jan 2016. Later that month, on the Hugo thread and discussing amplifier bandwidth, he wrote that a bright, forced sound "tires very easily" and that "When you hear noise floor modulation its easy to confuse it with better detail resolution, as it sounds brighter and etched" Head-Fi, Jan 2016. A Hifistatement interview published in January 2016 (German, with an English machine translation) reports him saying that at one point in development he thought Dave sounded too full and too dark, and that noise floor modulation makes things sound brighter and harder article, Jan 2016. In the English audio of the Hifistatement interview (recorded about January 2016, published July 2016, and apparently the same Sommer and Dietl interview) he said "often so-called transparent products actually sound hard and bright and just give the impression of lots of detail" Hifistatement 0.

In March 2016 he said he could not always tell the cause of a brighter change by AB listening. His question was whether brightness comes from improved transparency or from noise floor modulation, and he wrote "Sometimes, its almost impossible to decide using AB testing - the only way of knowing is by checking for the musicality, and that takes a long time" Head-Fi, Mar 2016. In his blog post of the previous day he described the musicality check as living with a change over many days or weeks, and said it is "not effective for small changes" Head-Fi, Mar 2016. In April 2016 he reported that an audiophile USB cable first seemed better with tighter bass, "but this was just the brighter sound quality", and that the difference later traced to his headphone cable picking up RF from the larger USB cable. In the same post he said the AES/EBU input "will make it sound brighter, due to more noise floor modulation" Head-Fi, Apr 2016. In May 2016, for bit-perfect source changes on Dave, he advised "go for the warmer and softer sound - as that is the most transparent - even if it sounds too smooth!", and added that results depend on the system ("YMWV") Head-Fi, May 2016. In June 2016 he recalled that late in Dave's development it sounded "Too dark and too soft", and that "I certainly was not going to add some noise floor modulation to spice it up a bit"; the balance changed only when he improved the WTA filter Head-Fi, Jun 2016.

In July 2016, comparing a new Dave with his pre-production unit, he found the new one brighter and more transparent, but wrote "I can't be 100% sure" the brightness came entirely from transparency. He separated the two with a busy track: if it "falls apart when the going gets tough it is not true transparency", and the new unit was clearer on difficult material Head-Fi, Jul 2016. In September 2016 he said using femto clocks measurably increases skirts and they "sound much brighter - and its easy to confuse the brightness as more transparency" Head-Fi, Sep 2016.

On the Dave thread he also preferred USB to optical in 2016. In March he wrote that he would "still like to close the small gap from optical to the slightly better sounding USB input" Head-Fi, Mar 2016, and agreed USB was "a tad more detailed with more clarity than the optical - but we are talking small differences here", adding "The reason USB is slightly better is because the timing comes from the FPGA" Head-Fi, Mar 2016. In July he said optical was not as good as the USB, which has "zero jitter/timing issues as the clock comes from Dave", and that "Before galvanic isolation, optical was so much better than USB" Head-Fi, Jul 2016. He later retracted this preference (January 2018 and March 2022, below).

2017 to 2018 (Hugo 2, Dave, Hugo M Scaler, Qutest)

In May 2017, on Hugo 2, he wrote "Note: assuming the source is bit perfect, then if it sounds brighter it most definitely is worse" Head-Fi, May 2017. In July 2017 he described a "yin and yang" balance in which "More refinement equates to a warmer presentation; more transparency gives a much brighter presentation", and warned that a superficial improvement "may just be down to better balance (one distortion balancing another)" Head-Fi, Jul 2017. In October 2017 he said it is "almost impossible, or actually impossible, to tell the difference between a little bit of noise floor modulation making it sound brighter" and a transparency gain miceblue425 47:43. At CanJam RMAF in October 2017 (video published December 2017) he said "The best listening test possible is one when you're changing a variable and you can hear absolutely nothing" RMAF 2:55.

For sources, cables and ferrites he applied a warmer-is-better rule. Of USB cables he wrote in November 2017 that poor RF characteristics give "a brighter SQ, which can easily fool the listener that it is more transparent" Head-Fi, Nov 2017. In December 2017, on ferrites, he wrote "it's very easy to confuse a bright sound with more transparency" Head-Fi, Dec 2017. In January 2018, on the Hugo 2 thread, he said that before Hugo 2 USB had sounded brighter than optical and that he "could not tell from listening tests" whether that was transparency or RF noise, and that for source changes "the warmer one is the better solution - even if it makes the system too warm" Head-Fi, Jan 2018. Four days later, on the Dave thread, he retracted his 2016 view: "I used to think that USB had the edge on optical - it's slightly brighter - but I was wrong about that, the brightness is not better timing as the clock comes from Dave, but worse RF noise pick-up" Head-Fi, Jan 2018. In March 2018 he wrote that "a small amount of noise floor modulation spices the sound up like MSG" Head-Fi, Mar 2018. In May 2018 he said servers sound brighter "with the illusion of better transparency; classic hallmarks of RF noise generation", and that "people just enjoy added distortion, particularly noise floor modulation" Head-Fi, May 2018. In October 2018, on the M Scaler thread, he wrote of cables "If it sounds brighter it's wrong, as more RF" Head-Fi, Oct 2018. At a Nintronics open day in November 2018 (talk published December 2018) he described a red flag: "the detail resolution seems to be better, but the timbre variation is worse" Pursuit Perfect System 25:55.

He did not treat darker as automatically better. In January 2018 he recalled that at one point Dave sounded very dark and warm, that he was happy to accept that as correct for a state-of-the-art goal, and that a presentation that is too dark and warm "could end up being overall unsatisfactory" Head-Fi, Jan 2018. In April 2018 he said that if a system is too bright or analytical "one must resolve that issue, and not add more distortion or coloration to superficially balance the sound" Head-Fi, Apr 2018.

2019 to 2021 (TT2, Qutest, Hugo M Scaler, Dave)

In February 2019, on the Qutest thread, he wrote "Technically USB is better from the clock POV; but in practice I have had optical sound identical to USB" Head-Fi, Feb 2019. That comes after the 2018 retraction, and it differs from his October 2022 statement below that "there is no technical benefit to using USB over optical when using my DACs" Head-Fi, Oct 2022.

In March 2019 (date estimated from post ID), on the TT2 thread, he said that reducing harmonic distortion makes things brighter and more transparent, but "if you remove harmonic distortion and don't worry about noise floor modulation, it will sound bright and hard and analytical; but when you eliminate noise floor modulation then the natural warmth comes back" Head-Fi, Mar 2019. In April 2019 he gave an illustration with example percentages: a product pushed to 90% transparency with 85% refinement would be seen as "very bright and analytical", because perception does not change linearly Head-Fi, Apr 2019.

From 2020 to 2021 he applied the RF explanation to linear power supplies and other additions. In April 2020 (date estimated), on the M Scaler, he said an audiophile linear supply gives "a brighter SQ (conning you into thinking it's more transparent), a wider soundstage, an artificial etched quality and of course more listening fatigue" Head-Fi, Apr 2020. In June 2020, on the Qutest thread, replying to an observation that is not in the item, he called it "a sign of more RF injected into the DAC, giving you more noise floor modulation, which in turn gives an impression of more details", and said "it will increase listening fatigue" Head-Fi, Jun 2020. In July 2020 (date estimated), on TT2: "Because it sounds brighter with the LPS you are just thinking it is better" Head-Fi, Jul 2020. In April 2020, on mains conditioners, he wrote "if it sounds brighter, or no difference, then return it" and "Mains treatment, if it represents an improvement, will always sound warmer, smoother or darker" Head-Fi, Apr 2020. In August 2020, comparing a server with his MSI laptop on Dave, he described "the server sounding bright and with false transparency" Head-Fi, Aug 2020. In May 2021 he gave the source rule of thumb: "the warmer sound is the better, more accurate performance, as it indicates lower noise floor modulation" Head-Fi, May 2021. In June 2021 (date estimated), on TT2, he wrote that noise floor modulation "can etch the sound quality, giving a false sense of transparency", and added "this is with my system, and your mileage may vary" Head-Fi, Jun 2021. In October 2021, discussing USB cables, he wrote "a brighter sound is definitely a degradation" Head-Fi, Oct 2021.

2022 to 2026

In March 2022 he wrote on the Dave thread, "You have discovered a post where I made a mistake. In 2016 with Dave I did indeed prefer the brightness of USB". He later found with a laptop that had both outputs that the difference was RF noise, and wrote "it's almost impossible to tell the difference from a genuine improvement in transparency (brighter sound better detail resolution) to a very small increase in noise floor modulation" Head-Fi, Mar 2022. In the same post he wrote "Optical should always be considered the reference (best) input", and the next day added that this does not mean all USB sources sound the same as optical, because the galvanic isolation on the USB is not perfect Head-Fi, Mar 2022Head-Fi, Mar 2022. In April 2022 he wrote that "it's extremely easy to hear an increase in brightness as better transparency when in fact it's actually worse due to more noise floor modulation for example", while a test that "clearly sounds better in a defined way (like better depth - there is no question about interpretation here)" and repeats on many occasions can be trusted Head-Fi, Apr 2022. In August 2022 he said he prefers the word clarity to transparency: "I can't bare transparency - people use the term transparency because details are falsely exaggerated, and things sound etched and bright" Head-Fi, Aug 2022. In September 2022 he applied the same reasoning to power amplifiers with extended bandwidth: "Noise floor modulation makes it sound brighter and more etched - you have a little amount of signal dependent noise spicing up the sound" Head-Fi, Sep 2022. In October 2022, on TT2, he said "I too used to prefer USB than optical", and that RF noise makes the sound "brighter and superficially more impressive - but it's a degradation" Head-Fi, Oct 2022.

In a March 2023 interview he said RF "makes things sound brighter and it gives the illusion that it's more transparent" Eric's Hi-Fi 13:22, and that with less RF noise "You can play at a louder volume level" Eric's Hi-Fi 14:07. A May 2023 post says the same about volume Head-Fi, May 2023. In March 2024 he said "Some people actually prefer the sound of noise floor modulation because it artificially enhances the sound. It sounds etched." MFG Audio Reviews 13:01. In the same seminar he said that with a linear supply "You're going to be fooled into thinking it's better", and named instrument separation, focus and listening fatigue as ways to check MFG Audio Reviews 39:52. In September 2024 he said "the key is variation" and "it's not about tweaking it to make it sound warmer or brighter or whatever" The Source AV 26:22. In November 2024 he said he was wrong on an earlier post about USB being more transparent on the 2Qute: the extra brightness "was indeed down to noise floor modulation", and "it's so easy to prefer an aberration, error or distortion" Head-Fi, Nov 2024. In an interview recorded at a Munich show, most likely May 2024 though the record marks that as unverified (published February 2025), he said "They'll go for a bright sound and think the bright sound is more accurate", and listed timbre, pitch, instrument separation and focus, and sound stage accuracy as what he listens to audio-2G 8:13audio-2G 8:58.

In a video published March 2026 (recording date not stated), on Dave and the Quartet M Scaler, he said noise floor modulation means "rich and dark instruments become brighter than they should do" Audio Force 24:57. His most recent items in this archive were published in October 2026 (recording dates not stated). He said noise floor modulation makes bright instruments more etched but also makes dark instruments brighter, and "that is how you spot you're actually listening to a distortion" HiFi Buys 48:54. He said "it's very easy for people to confuse a brighter sound quality to being more transparent" in a discussion of bandwidth Distorsiuni Interioare 1:15:49. He also asked whether a change is "a real improvement" or "balancing another problem" Part-Time Audiophile 6:40, and gave the opposite sign: "If a saxophone sounds warmer and a trumpet at the same time sounds brighter, so you've got a bigger variation in timbre, then you know you've made a fundamental improvement" Part-Time Audiophile 8:21.

When he says brighter is a real gain

He does not say brightness always signals distortion. In November 2015 he said that after redesigning Dave's interpolation filters "The perception of timing was much faster and brighter than before", and he treated that as accuracy, not an artifact Head-Fi, Nov 2015. In March 2017 he said Hugo 2's incisive filter option "is absolutely technically more accurate; it only sounds brighter because the brain can now more accurately perceive the starting and stopping of notes" Head-Fi, Mar 2017. In January 2018 he wrote that when higher order harmonics were reduced in his projects, "it sounds brighter with better transparency" Head-Fi, Jan 2018. What separates the cases, in his account, is timbre variation, busy-track behavior, instrument separation and focus, fatigue and musicality HiFi Buys 49:43Head-Fi, Jul 2016MFG Audio Reviews 39:52Head-Fi, Mar 2016.

He has also said his own playback is too soft rather than too bright when judged against live sound. In September 2022 he said of his digital chain "it's not hard and bright, it's too soft, too soft, too warm" The Source AV 21:22. In January 2023, comparing his own recordings with playback (in one case on Hugo 2), he wrote that "digital is too soft and warm, with degraded timbre variation", and that sharp attacks lack the impact of live sound Head-Fi, Jan 2023.

What he has not said

He has not said that every brighter change is distortion: the posts above separate cases where he judges brightness to be transparency Head-Fi, Jul 2016Head-Fi, Mar 2017. He has not said darker is always better Head-Fi, Jan 2018Head-Fi, Jan 2023. His warmer-is-better rule is stated for bit-perfect sources, cables, ferrites and power supplies feeding his own DACs, often tied to his own system and hedged with YMMV Head-Fi, May 2017Head-Fi, Jun 2021Head-Fi, May 2016; in 2020 he applied the same rule to mains conditioners Head-Fi, Apr 2020. He gives no way to settle a single case by measurement alone when nothing is measurable; he says that case depends on knowing technically what was changed Head-Fi, Mar 2016.

Quotes

“a superficially brighter sound, giving the impression of better detail resolution, is often distortion.”2014-04-15 Head-Fi, Apr 2014

“Sometimes, its almost impossible to decide using AB testing - the only way of knowing is by checking for the musicality, and that takes a long time.”2016-03-29 Head-Fi, Mar 2016

“Note: assuming the source is bit perfect, then if it sounds brighter it most definitely is worse.”2017-05-17 Head-Fi, May 2017

“it's very easy for people to confuse a brighter sound quality to being more transparent.”2026-10-11 Distorsiuni Interioare 1:15:49

Dated positions

Caveats and open points

• The Hifistatement DAVE interview item is a machine translation of German text that is the publisher's translation of his English answers, so it is paraphrased here, not quoted.
• Head-Fi, Mar 2019, Head-Fi, Apr 2020, Head-Fi, Jul 2020 and Head-Fi, Jun 2021 carry dates estimated from post IDs.
• Most of the warmer-is-better statements concern bit-perfect sources, cables, ferrites, power supplies and clocks feeding his own DACs, and are tied to his own system; he often adds YMMV.
• Head-Fi, Jun 2020 is a short reply to an observation that is not in the item, so what the 'it' refers to is not shown.
• His 2016 preference for USB on Dave is shown by 2016 posts Head-Fi, Mar 2016Head-Fi, Mar 2016Head-Fi, Jul 2016; his later accounts of it come from 2018, 2022 and 2024 posts. His February 2019 statement that USB is technically better from the clock point of view and his October 2022 statement that there is no technical benefit to USB over optical differ, and the answer gives both as he wrote them.
• The femto clock statement (Head-Fi, Sep 2016) gives a different mechanism, low-frequency jitter skirts, not RF noise floor modulation.
• audio-2G 8:58 is cited only for the list of attributes he checks; its transcription of the bright and rich instrument example appears garbled, so it is not quoted.
• Several 2026 interview and podcast statements are dated here by publication because no recording date is stated (Audio Force Thailand video, March 2026; HiFiBuys, Distorsiuni Interioare and Occasional Podcast items, October 2026).

Topics: Tonal character as a diagnostic, RF noise: mechanisms and audibility, Noise floor modulation