A couple of weeks ago, I went with a mate to listen to some "high end" equipment at his favourite specialist dealers, as they were holding an open-house demo day. There was some very expensive stuff being used there.
After listening to some very good recordings being played from vinyl and some very good sounding CD's, I was asked if I wanted to hear anything. As I'm curious about this Hi-res digital thing, I asked if they had any suitable music files so I could hear what all the fuss was about. I admit to having been rather sceptical.
A series of tracks were loaded into a playlist (I had a hand in choosing them) and, iPad in hand, I played a number of them through a Linn Akurate DS and an even more expensive non-Linn amp and Shahinian speakers.
Initially the first few 16/44.1 rips just sounded quite good or nothing particularly striking, but then I selected a couple of hi-res downloads versions of identical tracks that had been ripped to 16/44.1
Switching from a CD rip at 16/44.1 to the same track downloaded from a certain web site in 24/44.1 I expected to be listening out for some subtle difference. Heck no! It was immediately obvious that the higher res format was providing a much more open and detailed sound. I switched back and forth a few times to confirm what I was hearing and the difference was definately there.
The exercise was repeated for another track (acoustic - piano and female vocalist) with similar results.
A couple of vinyl diehards were listening too and they seemed to be quite astonished by this.
I tried a couple of 24/96 tracks and again was very impressed with the results, although I have to say my socks were almost blown off by an high quality recording on CD and by a particular "audiophile quality" vinyl LP.
The impression I got was that there's definately something worth persuing with the hi-res digital formats, but as always it depends on the source material.
We're repeatedly being told it's impossible to hear any difference, or that only some people will hear subtle differences some of the time. I had an open mind on it, but the difference I heard that day was quite obvious and I have no claim to "golden ears" or suchlike. Whether there's any advantage to hi-res files on mid-range or budget equipment might be another matter entirely?
This episode reminded me of certain experts in the 1990's telling us that all CD players sound the same....?????
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