The Hi Res discussion will run and run, with those irreconcilable disputes between those who 'know' what we cannot hear and those who just use their ears and observe.
Even when reviewing a substantial quantity of designers' efforts in the field of digital audio reproduction, whenever you think you have observed a pattern in the performance of a particular technology , a gain in quality because of this filtering, that oversampling , the other , jitter reduction, perhaps led by the assumptions of successful designers or claims, you invariably find you have it wrong, that there was insufficient evidence and the very next product often calls you out.
Thanks to some recent and exceptional components I discover that Red Book can be much better sounding than I have so far experienced, indeed, so help me , up to this point better than any high res material on any one of a dozen other high end decoders.
Such a comparison would at first lead you to think that Red Book was perfect enough, and is certainly still good enough for some the best audio systems assembled. Moreover aside from vintage vinyl it is our best source of real music , music by performers who truly entertain.
Notwithstanding the paucity of what I call real music on hi res the odd scrap played though a true reference level DAC is better still, useful for somewhat academic review comparisons, but when listening for pleasure the vast majority of tracks will be Red Book unless it is vinyl.
It is ironic that it it easy to hear the faults in LP reproduction and yet they do not get in the way of the music. (only if you want them to!)
It is much harder to identify flaws in digital replay, and in Class D amplifiers for that matter but these flaws have the potential to make music replay rather less satisfying.
Here it is better not to consciously seek out the flaws but rather stand back and assess how well the music is played (rather than 'replayed')
Reasonably familiar with master-tape, and with some direct cut recordings which are still playable as a reference I seem to find that the better digital replay gets , the more it sounds like good , neutral analogue.
High quality sound is a delicate thing and so easily damaged in the setting up. I have spent an arduous year exploring net based music storage and streaming trying to get the emotional involvement factor of the very best short path CD replay, but with potential for hi res audio and the convenience of a file based library.
Every step of the way , from computers , to drives , switches, cables , proved to be an issue , and greatly affected quality, often indirectly , though fans. whirring drives, and much RFI from WiFI, PowerLine and the many required, ubiquitous, switch mode power supplies.
You only had to power up some of this stuff, never mind connect it to your system , for it to be irrelevant whether a music file was hi res or not.
After all these years I consider that Red Book has some real mileage yet, and for me system set up is at present more important than that relativity modest lift to hi res.
Martin Colloms
Tech. Ed, HIFICRITIC
