Dear all, thanks for your helpful comments and ongoing suggestions.

Just to rehearse the general idea, according to my ears airborne time signals capture the amplitude and timbre of my sound world. Instantaneous amplitude is coded as bits in the digital signal. The more bits per sample, the more amplitude levels.
That amplitude information in the time signal is sufficient to capture sound timbre if it is sampled at a high enough rate. (Amazing). I think I now see that's where (electrical) noise added before the DAC can mess with sound quality by ghosting the timing of samples. Is this making sense?

So it's not about bit coding, but it is more about keeping noise out. I suppose this kind of noise can be in the air or in the power supply. Some time ago someone at Meridian told me the MS600 is slightly better than the 218 due to its slightly better power supply. Later some folks took the brave step of modifying their 218 with a much better power supply, (Farad 3 I think), and reported good results. So I was thinking a better switch might have a better power supply, better clock, better shielding, etc...

thanks again all,
Sprongle

Once upon a time