What I'd love to see is a CD player with a R2R set up like that of a Holo Spring DAC, or something similar in execution, all in one box. Or, it could be a two box solution with better isolation and an umbilical of the highest order, eliminating the need for another cable. They'd sell out in the first week.
We have to remember that we all start with a listening room of about 40db (level of a library), which trashes the noise floor, and cuts off much from even hi-rez, leaving us with about 60-70 db of headroom to play with. Now take that kick drum, which has the greatest dynamic range (75-80db) and just how nicely does that fit into our listening environment? Most rooms cannot accurately reproduce it yet it pounds our chests most convincingly. With 16 bit I'm getting 96db of dynamic range and it satisfies in a most realistic way, with only 56db or so of available resolution that I can hear, in that noisy library-like environment. Even the smaller drums poke me in the chest like fists and fingers, depicting their smaller size. All of this and more from "just 16 bit" recordings, done right.
Raising the number to 192 won't increase the resolution (unless you've recorded gunfire which no speaker can reproduce) since the recording was done with a mike that rolls off above 15Khz, from a 16 bit 44.1 master. You can remaster it at a higher rate but where's the improvement coming from? You're reshaping the original signal, changing it for the sake of yet another catalogue of remasters.
By the way, I know I'm off on some of these numbers but close enough to augment my thoughts.
All the best,
Nonoise
We have to remember that we all start with a listening room of about 40db (level of a library), which trashes the noise floor, and cuts off much from even hi-rez, leaving us with about 60-70 db of headroom to play with. Now take that kick drum, which has the greatest dynamic range (75-80db) and just how nicely does that fit into our listening environment? Most rooms cannot accurately reproduce it yet it pounds our chests most convincingly. With 16 bit I'm getting 96db of dynamic range and it satisfies in a most realistic way, with only 56db or so of available resolution that I can hear, in that noisy library-like environment. Even the smaller drums poke me in the chest like fists and fingers, depicting their smaller size. All of this and more from "just 16 bit" recordings, done right.
Raising the number to 192 won't increase the resolution (unless you've recorded gunfire which no speaker can reproduce) since the recording was done with a mike that rolls off above 15Khz, from a 16 bit 44.1 master. You can remaster it at a higher rate but where's the improvement coming from? You're reshaping the original signal, changing it for the sake of yet another catalogue of remasters.
By the way, I know I'm off on some of these numbers but close enough to augment my thoughts.
All the best,
Nonoise