wooster

I think you must be comparing the download to a remastered CD version. The download of Gaucho sounds much better than my mid-80s CD. The differences are immediately obvious. This goes some way to supporting a suspicion of mine that the mastering is far more important than bit-depth/sample rate. It also means that whether it's worth buying another version of an album really depends on which version you have in the first place.

The difficulty with this whole debate, it seems to me, is that, while the fact that most people cannot detect a difference between components in a blind listening test does not prove that there isn't one, the fact that you or I can detect a difference does not prove that there is one. Some people are certain that they have seen ghosts; does that prove that ghosts exist? Of course, if I am certain that I can detect a difference between components, that may well be all the proof I need. Same with if I've seen a ghost. Personally, I'm not sure that I can always rely on my own perceptions. Sometimes I think my hi-fi system sounds different on different days of the week, and I'm fairly sure that how I'm feeling has an impact on how things sound.

dCS, Nagra, Chord (electronics), Sugden, ATC (studio monitors and domestic speakers), Goldmund ...

Have you compared with the regular CD? The 24/96 version without limiting (from Paul McCartney's website) sounds fabulous to me.

Has to be b). I already have the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC and a Netgear DNLA router with connected hard drive, so I am just waiting for the PS Audio Bridge. Oh, and I'm planning to control it with an iPad (birthday coming up).

Although there may be a theoretical loss of information when using the DAC's volume control at less than 50%, PS Audio's advice is that such loss is likely to be less than that caused by any "solution", including by the insertion of a pre-amp. Having tried Rothwell RCA attenuators between my Perfect Wave DAC and my Musical Fidelity power amp., I definitely prefer the sound without the attenuators. I would also add that the unattenuated sound is so good, I don't feel inclined to experiment further.

If the suggestion is that high quality hi-fi is wasted on people who can't reliably hear the difference between, say, 24/96 and 256kbps, then I'm not at all convinced. In my recent post "High v Mid v Low", I described a simple test, comparing different resolution versions of the same recording. My conclusion, admittedly based on a small sample, was that I couldn't reliably tell the difference between even the extremes of 24/192 and 256kbps. Some other contributors to this forum - including Scot in this thread - have expressed similar doubts (though I get the impression that no-one is keen to repeat my test). But this doesn't mean that I and others can't detect subtle differences. CD players and DACs, for instance, don't all sound the same to me. Perhaps more controversially, I have easily detected differences between interconnects (including digital) and even between power cables. Of course, if my listening conditions were different - different equipment, speaker positioning, more or less lively acoustic etc. - my conclusions about the effects of "high" v "low" resolution, and other changes, could be completely different. In the meantime, it seems to me that no purpose is served by casting aspersions on the discernment/hearing ability of other audiophiles.

Hi wgscott I have speaker wiring under the floor and use gold-plated terminals quite like the ones in the picture, except that there are four for each speaker (bi-wired). I haven't compared the sound with and without the terminals, so I can't be sure whether they degrade the sound at all. I can say that the system sounds great, so if there is any degradation caused by the terminals, I'm more than happy to live with it in the interests of neatness/elegance. I should mention, perhaps, that my speakers are positioned half way into the room, so what they look like from the back is important.

Hi wslam. OK. Can't argue with that - and thank you for replying.

When you detected the differences between high resolution and CD, were you comparing different resolution versions of the same recordings? All of the high resolution recordings I have sound fantastic, but so do lower resolution versions of the same recordings - and still much better than the usual run of CDs. The differences between the high resolution recordings and most CDs convinced me for a while that high resolution was making all the difference - until I experimented with down-sampled versions of the same recordings. I know I keep making the same point, but I just want to be sure that we are comparing like with like.

I take your point, which I think is that, maybe, the higher resolution is removing some noise/distortion that otherwise obscures the differences between recordings. The trouble is that if you are not comparing the same recordings at both 24/96 and 16/44.1, you don't know that it's the resolution that's the issue. It could just be that there really is a much bigger variation in recording quality among the relatively small sample of 24/96 recordings that you have - especially since the HDTT recordings are not going to sound like modern multi-miked digital recordings, which I'm guessing might be the source of the HD Tracks samples. Incidentally, I've always found the variation in sound quality between CDs to be enormous - though not so much on classical music, I admit. I've also heard pretty significant differences between different CD issues of the same recording, but that's another subject...

I created downsampled versions of 24/192, 24/176.4 and 24/96 files and compared the various downsampled versions to the originals as well as to each other. If you can easily detect the difference between 24/96 and 16/44.1, then I suspect that 24/192 will be a further improvement, but I'm afraid that's only a guess. I just haven't been able to hear the difference myself so far.

Hi Cemil I posted a few days ago under the title "High v Mid v Low Resolution" to the effect that I'm not sure I can detect differences between 24/192, 24/96, 16/44.1 and even iTunes downloads. In a way, I suppose this disqualifies me from having any right to answer your question, but I would just say that, before spending a lot of money on getting 24/192, are you sure that you can easily tell the difference between 24/96 and 16/44.1 on the same recording?

Hi barrows I tried Reference Recordings' Carmen Habanera Fantasia (Bizet) at 24bit/176.4kHz and 16bit/44.1kHz. I used Filter 4 on the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC, which, according to the manual, favours sample rates higher than 44.1kHz, because there is some high frequency roll-off at 44.1kHz. Still pretty much no difference that I could detect. Maybe there is a little more "air" at 176.4kHz, but I don't think I could identify it in a blind listening session. To put this into perspective, when I replaced some of the power cables in my system recently, the improvement was immediately obvious to me, so I suppose I'd have to conclude that any difference between 24bit/176.4kHz and 16bit/44.1kHz is, for me, less significant than the difference attributable to power cables (and that is even after power regeneration via the Power Plant Premier). Of course, this is still only on the basis of comparisons made so far. I may yet find a recording on which resolution makes all the difference. Anyone else care to make a comparison and share findings?

Ajax, I'm sure the Gwynneth Herbert sounds wonderful, but have you tried a 16 bit/44.1kHz copy to make sure that that doesn't sound just as wonderful? I have some of the Naim 24/96 downloads too, and they sound phenomenal, but I also have some Naim CDs, and they sound great too Barrows, I'm using the Power Plant Premier and audiophile (Chord/PS Audio) power cables, so I think the power side is taken care of (and, by the way, makes a significant difference - at least to my ears). I'll try what you suggest, with an HRX sample, but I suppose my point is that if higher resolution really is important, then I shouldn't have to listen all that carefully. As to the filters on the DAC, I admit that I have left these on the auto setting, meaning that the filter is different for different sample rates. But, if anything, shouldn't this lead to more of a difference between playback of files with different resolution, rather than less (with the filter introducing an additional difference)? I suppose that what you might be saying is that the DAC filters do such a good job that they effectively eliminate differences between different sample rates, presumably bringing the lower sample rates up to the quality of the higher ones, rather than vice versa. I'll test this too