It's great to test things to the limits of our ability to measure. Thoroughness is certainly admirable. But ultimately, the information we learn may be more *interesting* than it is useful. The equipment we are talking about testing here has an intended purpose... faithfully reproducing commercially recorded music in the home. For the measurements to be useful, they have to fit within that context.
Does it matter that a coo coo clock cannot operate under zero gravity? I don't think they are likely to have one on the Space Station. Does it matter that a player can accurately reproduce super audible frequencies or have a noise floor significantly below the inherent noise floor in commercially recorded music? Well, it might be interesting to know, but it really doesn't matter.
There is such a thing as "good enough". Most of us make determinations similar to that every day in every aspect of our lives... Do I have enough gas in the tank to get to work and back today? Do I have a couple of quarters in my pocket for the parking meter?
I've been interested in hifi for about 45 years now. I remember what turntables and tape decks were. Back then, it was all about optimizing every little aspect that you could... buy a better grade of tape, fancy record cleaning systems, noise reduction gizmos... Well, we've gotten past all that now. We have a format and equipment that is perfect for the purposes of listening to commercially recorded music in our living rooms. Nothing is missing. Nothing is degraded. Our ears are receiving every nuance of sound that they can possibly hear.
Once you achieve that goal, what do you do? There are two options:
1) You double down on perfect for the intended purpose and try to achieve better than required. That is an interesting exercise in seeing how far past the bleeding edge you can push it.
or 2) You sit down in that comfy chair in your living room and immerse yourself in wonderful music presented to you with a fidelity that matches or exceeds your ability to listen to it.
I have no objection to "obsession for obsession's sake". If someone enjoys calculating Pi to more decimal points than is necessary, I say, "Have fun with it." But if they are going to go into a forum like this and tell people that they are missing out on some sort of tangible benefit, or THEORETICAL tangible benefit, then I throw up the flag for a foul. No one is missing out on sound because they are listening to a CD instead of an SACD. They're only missing out on irrelevant frequencies that flat out don't matter for the intended purpose.
When you conduct a test, you can go for abstract information, or you can try to solve a problem. The test should be designed with a purpose too. The problem here is twofold: People are demanding higher standards of others than they demand of themselves. And they are straying out of context into lala lands of "what ifs" and doubling down on tiny details.
Neither of those two things will help you get a great sounding stereo system. It's more likely to lead you astray.
There is - in real world - no such thing as "good enough". At least not in audio - yet.
Referring to the RBCD as being ( quote ) : a format and equipment that is perfect for the purposes of listening to commercially recorded music in our living rooms. Nothing is missing. Nothing is degraded. Our ears are receiving every nuance of sound that they can possibly hear. (end of quote ) is misleading - at best.
There is a reason why formats with frequency response well past 20 kHz ( tape, analog record, hirez digital ) are gaining traction - and that reason is sound quality. There are many technical whys and hows behind it - but let+s limit ourseves with ther fact that real world filtering of digital recording and playback is still anything but perfect and can introduce more garbage well past 20 kHz than any analog recording ever had.
SACD is nothing else than DSD64 ( 64 times oversampling of 44.100 Hz used for RBCD ) 2.8something MHz at 1 bit. It is absolutely the lowest "grade" that is usable - and barely at that. Its main drawback is really high levels of ultrasonic noise above 20 kHz. If the recording level is not pushed close to 0dBFS, and god forbid recording peaking at -10dBFS or less, with lesser amps it IS possible to start clipping the amp - with no or really low level music playing in DSD64. It becomes audible as "noise" once you go past certain volume setting on the amplifier - and the setting that does allow for the clipping of the amp in ultrasonics to be avoided is not going to attain normal listening level.
I did a fair amount recording in DSD64 before switching to DSD128 - which I regard to be as minimal standard for DSD as was/is Yugo the minimal requirement for aN usable car. Although no more recorded information can get retrieved by upsampling a DSD recording originally made in lower sampling frequency, what CAN be achieved is lowering the level of that ultrasonic noise. And that reduction gives one 6dB lower ultrasonic noise for each doubling the sampling frequency. Even Foobar2000 already suports DSD1024 - more or less for this reason, since there are only a handful native genuine DSD512 recordings available at the time and none DSD1024 ( all have been upsampled ) .
There is a thread about "what frequencies are in HDTracks" ... - mainly used for complaining there are artefacts not contained in music and altogether slamming anything with any output above 20 kHz does not only serve no purpose, but is detrimental to sound quality. And THAT is - partially at least - correct at the time; since downloads available today have been agreed to be made/upsampled from lower resolution recordings using both hardware and software available "at the time". That "at the time" can with advances in digital be measured in ever increasingly ( or decreasingly, whatever you prefer ) shorter amounts of time. One thing IS certain - though; no one is going to use in the future digital gear made in late 80s/90s/00s ( as is common with analog gear ) - not if the best sound quality is the aim.
Whatever advances in DACs ( and that HAS TO include ADCs of comparable quality, too.. ) in the future, it WILL be also about lowering whatever artefacts ( noise, aloiasing, jitter, etc ) above 20 kHz - in GHz range, if required.
Only in this way a truly clean audio ( to 100 kHz or so - musical instruments DO contain frequencies that high ) with insignificantly low anything else can bew achieved. And only that can then be - finally - called "audibly transparent".
Remember one certain thing : from such master that is ship shape to 100kHz or even above, one can make CD ( with all of its audible limitations ) - whreas one can not make a 100 kHz master from a RBCD master. Only improving upon brickwall filtering issues and noise - not the actual content.
From that is clear - I at least hope so - that throwing all hirez (both upsamplings and true native hirez, regardless if PCM or DSD ) in the same one basket is WRONG.
One has to use native hirez recordings for listening evaluations. And, no, you can not have (n+1)th remastering of the Dark Side Of The Moon - and think of it as true hirez. It can only be the best digital copy of the analog master tape - with all the limits and limitations of the SOTA studio gear that has been available back in the day.
Most of the "no difference" stems from this fact - not from the inability of currently available equipment to deliver.
There is no denying that the level of musicianship achieved in many "old, non hirez" recordings is unlikely to be ever witnessed again - and I to prefer good song on portable radio to superbly recorded audiohile covers on multimillion equipment.
Just don't compare apples to oranges; the history of recorded sound only spans some 125 years or so - and there have been serious improvements made with each modernization. Unfortunately, RBCD has been the first time at least some aspects of performance were worse than its predecessors. Now is the level of technology high enough to allow for digital to become free of the most glaring drawbacks - without havingto cost an arm and a leg.
For the meaningfully large selection library of good native hirez recording by good>great artists, at least some 20 years will be required. Most of us on this thread will probably no longer be around to witness this happening. But I most certainly do not want to be viewed as somebody who wanted to prevent that from happening.
Since they take on a heavy load. i.e., the low frequencies, I would think the subwoofers would be a way of providing for more headroom for the amp to drive the passive speakers.
