Heck, we can't even get places like Amazon to offer their 16/44.1 offerings in FLAC instead of compressed MP3. HDtracks is nice and all, but limited in selection.
On an aside, I do hope one of your chapters does touch on DSD Jason. I would love to hear yours and Mike's unabashed opinion on it. I'm sure it is floating around on the forum somewhere but I haven't run across it yet. I have tried my hardest to stick with PCM optical/coax as much as I can simply because there is too much heresy and doubletalk to know what to believe about anything else (and even this format has it's fair share of that too). It was a bit vindicating to read that Mike favors the same format.
The hope is, of course, that others will follow suit if Apple jumps in with high-res. Of course, the same caveats about recording quality will apply (thank you, Jud.)
With respect to DSD, Mike's opinion is that it is a mathematically compromised format that may sound different, but not necessarily better, than PCM. Mike's opinion is not necessarily popular, but it is shared by others, such as Ayre, Benchmark, and Linn. Jud and Mike will probably have to discuss that amongst themselves, but the reality (as I understand it) is, even if analog to digital converters (ADCs) used in recording use a sigma-delta modulator (SDM) at the input, they usually output PCM, and mixing and mastering is usually done in PCM, and many DACs that accept DSD streams convert them internally to some multilevel amalgamation of PCM and SDM before output. Which makes the "DSD is a less convoluted playback method" assertion more contentious. Of course, I could be mistaken, so I leave that to Mike.
I know that Mike's ideal recording and playback chain would be a true multibit ladder ADC outputting PCM and a true multibit ladder DAC accepting PCM. Of course, there are many challenges to this, not least of which is that reaching acceptable numbers in the "bit wars" (that is, 24 bits) on a ladder ADC is pretty much a no-go. But I know Mike would bet that if we had, say, a 20-bit ladder ADC and 20-bit ladder DAC running at 96kHz as the start- and end-point of the recording and playback chain, the game would be very different.
My opinion on DSD? Let me put on my pragmatic hat first. If it ever becomes a significant part of the library of available recordings, sure, you bet, we'll support it across the line, or create a device that makes supporting it seamless--and we'll do it right, with no SDM-PCM conversion amalgamation.
That said, in my marketing opinion, DSD only fuels the perception that "us audiophiles are a weird bunch, might as well stick with what iTunes is selling." Fighting over formats is really silly. All I want is good music, I don't care so much about the format. And there won't be any large-scale adoption of high-res until we make it (a) simple, and (b) understandable. This is what Neil Young is trying to do, and it's rumored that Apple may also get in with their own combination of black/white, low-res/high-res simplicity which could make for widespread adoption, or at least awareness. Which could change the rules entirely.
Also, when we talk DSD, we need to temper our enthusiasm by considering the large storage requirements, the fact that its filtering is drastically different than PCM (and therefore may create a DAC that is good at one thing, but not another, or at least increase cost considerably) and that no non-standard audio format has ever reached critical mass in terms of the number of recordings available, to become a viable, long-term competitor to the mainstream. As Mike says, "How are your HDCDs doing today?"
Again, not a popular position to take. But it does fuel additional discussion, right?
