30 Years of Perfect Sound?

"The best vinyl still sounds better and is more enjoyable to listen too than the 'best' digital."

You may have heard the best vinyl, but you have not heard the best digital. I can give you several customer reports that they sold their vinyl because it was not as good as their digital. They may not have had the best vinyl, but the cost of that is orders of magnitude higher than the best digital IME.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

This article is an antique and should be gathering dust in some used furniture store IMO. Nothing in here reflects the true potential of digital music, including a live-sounding playback.

It is not true that 44.1kHz or 16-bits is enough. The math is fine, but implemenations of DACs only approximate the math. Everything, including digital filtering is imperfect. As a result, digital filtering does a lot more damage than good. This is why NOS DACs are so popular.

Because of the flaws in digital filtering hardware, it is usually the case that 24-bit data sounds better, even 24/44.1. It is also the case 99% of DACs sound better with the same track in 96 rather than 44.1. This is because the filter roll-off is pushed much higher in frequency above audibility and the roll-off may also be less steep, creating less phase abberation. If you must have digital filtering, at least push it up beyond audibility.

"A CD player has no measurable jitter." total BS

"the fact that I can measure and show jitter picked up in a top-notch DAC at its analog output under very good conditions impresses even me"

Not me. If he is measuring jitter that easily, it must be huge compared to good systems. Where are the measurements? Good systems have less than 100psec. Good equipment is needed to measure this accurately, such as AP.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"The only thing that computer audio has murdered is the sound."

If you spend $100 for the computer gear, sure it will murder the sound.

I retired my highly modified CD transport many years ago, after my computer audio system left it in the dust. The modded CD transport was one of the best sounding on the market too. Lots of them still out there.

If you dont have the experience, dont pretend to be an expert. There is already too much misinformation on these forums.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio