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Nothing dogmatic, I actually listen to music!

1. Extended high frequencies are an important part of high resolution playback. I would argue that this statement is not of much value unless a comparison is run of a recording of a particular resolution (say 24 bit, 96KHz) which has variable roll-offs of high frequencies. Regardless of whether your speakers roll off at 20, 30 or 40KHz, the issue here is whether you can actually hear those frequencies, and whether they make a difference to the recording. The fact that they may be present in the recording does not mean they make a difference to the perceived sound.

Simple test for you if you have a computer hooked up to your stereo. Download a great sounding 24/96 recording from Reference Recordings or Chesky. Convert it to 24/48 using XLD or a similar converter. Compare the sound and see which one you like the best. On my computer the 24/96 version is clearly superior.

2. DSD is better than PCM (often correlated with Telarc is best). Again, you would need PCM and DSD versions of the same master to do the evaluation. I suspect the preference for DSD may be a preference of a particular master, not the digital format.

Most of my DSD recorded SACDs sound better than my PCM recorded SACDs. Again personal experience from the simple act of listening.

3. 16/44.1 is bad. Again, dogmatic and dismissive. It all comes down to the master and the DAC. I've heard replay through streaming DACS which sounded pretty darned good - with the right masters.

There are a handful of CDs that sound OK, but CDs in general sound bad, and if they were not so uncomfortable to listen to, I would gladly listen to them. Before the advent of high resolution digital I was able to enjoy HDCD encoded CDs from Reference Recordings, Acoustic Disc, Linn and FIM properly decoded with the Adcom GDA-700 HDCD DAC even though like CDs they were a little on the cold side and the LP versions (where they existed) were clearly superior. Other labels HDCDs sounded as bad as CDs and I learned that they didn't use the full encode-decode process. However when I got the Sony DVP-S9000ES SACD player and I compared the SACDs from Linn and FIM the SACD versions sounded so much realistic and exciting that I sold the Adcom GDA-700 DAC.

Nothing dogmatic, all of my opinions are from listening only, I am beholden to no one!



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