Think about it for a second. The 'steps' would be at a frequency of the sample frequency you are using. Since everything above half of that sample frequency is filtered out, those steps can not exist in the output of the converters.
say what you will ..... digital records things in steps .... very tiny steps but steps nonetheless.
An analog signal is a continuous sine wave .... a digital is an extrapolation of what a sinewave would be based on those sampling events.
And of course after the converters do their job there are no steps ...... but not because it filters out everything above the nyquist freq ...... but because that's the converters job ..... to produce an analog sine wave to drive amps and speakers.
i'm not claiming that the steps are present in the signal you listen to ..... I'm saying they are part of the original process of recording in digital and, IMO, have an effect on the final sound that gets recorded.
And I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else ..... I truly don't care even a tiny amount what any of ya'll believe .... hell, I don't care if ya'll exist.
I'm just saying that I hear a difference and I've learned to rely on my ears and I'll certainly take my ears over anything anyone has to say on the internet.
but you kinda mistated what I was saying or perhaps I didn't make it clear.
I'm talking about the initial recording process .. NOT the output once you're playing it on your speakers.
And there are definitely learned people that know their shit that agree with me about digital (16/44.1k) sound.
There are, of course, many learned people that agree with you.
I can find well written and convincing articles on both sides of the argument and I tend to be a measurement wonk myself.
If I didn't clearly and easily hear a difference I'd likely fall on the measurement side.
I well remember when solid state amps came out ...... the very same argument took place. 'Solid State amps that measure the same as tube amps
have to sound the same' was the POV of the objectivists.
Nowadays we know that they mostly don't. There are things we've since learned to measure that help explain that now but at the time they weren't measuring those things. And even now they don't totally understand why amps sound the way they do in subtle areas. If they did ....... every amp would sound great.
But once again ..... stating an opinion ...... am completely indifferent as to whether you agree or not.
But I did NOT say there were steps in the output signal.
