"why did I (and, we now learn, Steve Jobs) always find my CDs tiring" This is the real question. I have been a music fanatic most of my life and found that in the late eighties that I pretty much abandoned my stereo and new music collection. After a remodel a couple of years ago I pulled out my high end gear, including a turntable and found myself listening again. CDs were and still are fatiguing and I tend to wander away. Vinyl is not. This is not something that is readily apparent via A/B testing but it is absolutely there on extended listening and there are a lot of people with the same complaint. Modding my player, different players, outboard DACs help some, but it's still there.
About a year ago I bought a high end DAC and started listening to some hi-res digital stuff. CDs do sound better when they are upsampled, de-jittered, and run through a decent DAC, but they're still not right. Some of the higher res stuff is just stunning, and I don't want to flee the room. (Some of the hi-res stuff is very obviously upsampled 44/16 too)
I'm a EE and a long time audio hobbyist and I understand the theory but the practical implementation doesn't quite live up to the theory. I suspect a lot of it is the analog filtering to get rid of the HF crap which you discuss in your extended post. But that doesn't explain why hi-res stuff sounds better on the same DAC, so I'm inclined to say that theory or not, 44/16 just isn't enough. Regards, Jim W.
Re: If digital is better . . .
Date: 2012-03-06 05:45 pm (UTC)About a year ago I bought a high end DAC and started listening to some hi-res digital stuff. CDs do sound better when they are upsampled, de-jittered, and run through a decent DAC, but they're still not right. Some of the higher res stuff is just stunning, and I don't want to flee the room. (Some of the hi-res stuff is very obviously upsampled 44/16 too)
I'm a EE and a long time audio hobbyist and I understand the theory but the practical implementation doesn't quite live up to the theory. I suspect a lot of it is the analog filtering to get rid of the HF crap which you discuss in your extended post. But that doesn't explain why hi-res stuff sounds better on the same DAC, so I'm inclined to say that theory or not, 44/16 just isn't enough.
Regards,
Jim W.