Just a point of perspective; I am old enough to remember that Phillips invented digital audio and proposed a joint venture with Sony to stop competitive standard conflicts. Phillips' proposed standard was PCM, with 21 bit resolution. This came out as an LP sized CD. The head of Sony insisted that the product had to be reduced in size so as to allow for portability: hence the Sony Walkman. This meant that resolution had to be lowered down to 16 bits and the current Red-book standard came from this limitation. I would personally like to see a new upgraded standard for digital recording and thus, digital play, so long as it is backwardly compatible. Look at what this philosophy has done for PCs over the last 25 years!
Lastly, I think that most of the observations ahead of my comment are pretty astute, I just thought that I would broaden the scope a little on how we got here and how we might continue to improve the reproduction of music.
Lastly, I think that most of the observations ahead of my comment are pretty astute, I just thought that I would broaden the scope a little on how we got here and how we might continue to improve the reproduction of music.