[spruce music]

  The technical discussion is light years over my head.  However, if hobbyists decide to develop a project to conduct blind tests of recorded music, then, to beat a dead horse, maybe it would make sense to test amps (cables? converters?) as well. 

Cables are a non-issue forget about.  I and thousands have wasted time determining just what electrical theory says should be the case.  Cables are not a factor in audio except for certain broken or very peculiar situations.  Those are well explained just looking at LCR effects.  Like is the case with speaker cables and phono cables for LP.  So yes the horse is dead, please don't beat it as it only stirs up the flies.
 
Amps are close that situation though not completely, not with some speaker loads or designs that intentionally have a sound like tube gear.
 
Converters are also close the same situation with modern ADC and DAC units. 

 

[spruce music]

   
If the 44 and 88 could not be identified natively, than it seems that the chosen downsampling process was fudging the files.  To remove the gear from potentially being the culprit, I normally upsample the lower rate back up to the higher format when I ABX with Foobar, just in case the DAC handles one rate differently from another that could possibly be audible.  But in this case with the native 44 and 88 being too difficult to consistently identify between the two, I don't see the point in the downsampling.

I think the reason they tested downsampling, is for music that is recorded at higher rates and then released as CD.  So they were interested in the question:  if a recording is done natively at a higher rate, and is released as both a DVD-Audio or downloaded hirez file or as CD do they sound different.  The result at the time would make you think using concurrent gear at both rates for each release version is the way to go.  Or actually maybe 44 is the way to go as there is no benefit otherwise.

 

[ursdiego]

  The technical discussion is light years over my head.  However, if hobbyists decide to develop a project to conduct blind tests of recorded music, then, to beat a dead horse, maybe it would make sense to test amps (cables? converters?) as well. 

You are of course right. However, there is a practical use, I think.
 
I have the feeling, for example, that many are cautious about spending money for exotic cables, and if they do, they will test their purchases carefully. On the other hand, it seems that many take it for granted, that so called "hi-res" sounds better than "CD-Standard". Of course, the DAC-manufacturors want us to believe, because it makes it easy for them to suggest an upgrade. And it is more difficult to verify accurately at home than switching between stock wires and expensive aftermarket cables.
 
I have purchased quite some "hi-res" - tracks ad hdtracks or Qobuz during the last years, under the premise, that "if it does not help, it will not hurt". Knowing now, that the sound will probably not benefit substantially from this, I will think twice if I should not spend the same money for more music instead of higher bitrates. Or safe it up for new cans.
 
And shuld I eventually buy a new DAC, it will be more important to me, that the DAC-Chip is known for its "musicality" (as eg the "good old" pcm1704), and I will generally care more for high quality analog and digital parts than for the DAC's ability to convert 32bit or 384khz or DSD "natively".

 

[ursdiego]

 
I think the reason they tested downsampling, is for music that is recorded at higher rates and then released as CD.  So they were interested in the question:  if a recording is done natively at a higher rate, and is released as both a DVD-Audio or downloaded hirez file or as CD do they sound different.  The result at the time would make you think using concurrent gear at both rates for each release version is the way to go.  Or actually maybe 44 is the way to go as there is no benefit otherwise.

I agree that the finding is difficult to explain, that downsampling is worse than recording directly at the lower sample rate. This is very probably due to shortcomings of the downsampling algorythm used.