Please Educate Me


If I can’t find the answer here, I won’t find it anywhere. 

Something I’ve wondered about for a long time: The whole world is digital. Some huge percentage of our lives consists of ones and zeros. 

And with the exception of hi-fi, I don’t know of a single instance in which all of this digitalia isn’t yes/no, black/white, it works or it doesn’t. No one says, “Man, Microsoft Word works great on this machine,” or “The reds in that copy of Grand Theft Auto are a tad bright.” The very nature of digital information precludes such questions. 

Not so when it comes to hi-fi. I’m extremely skeptical about much that goes on in high end audio but I’ve obviously heard the difference among digital sources. Just because something is on CD or 92/156 FLAC doesn’t mean that it’s going to sound the same on different players or streamers. 

Conceptually, logically, I don’t know why it doesn’t. I know about audiophile-type concerns like timing and flutter. But those don’t get to the underlying science of my question. 

I feel like I’m asking about ABCs but I was held back in kindergarten and the computerized world isn’t doing me any favors. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do. I’ll be using Photoshop and I’ve got it dialed in just right. 
paul6001

Showing 3 responses by djones51

One reason could be they don't sound different on the 2 CD players you just think they do. You would need to conduct a proper listening test. Other reason could be the type of DACs  and reconstruction filters in the units are different. The CD is the same, the 1 and 0 are the same no matter what equipment you use but the equipment is different. It's the same with MS Word or whatever they can run different on different machines, Photoshop is a better example it can run fine on some machines and crash others. 
Unless this listening was done with proper blind testing then confirmation bias, cognitive bias, placebo etc...
Or differences in reconstruction filters and analog output of the units.
Let me repeat something from my first post: I’ve heard the difference. I’ve heard a PS Audio CD player sound better than my NAD when played through the same system. But search as I do, I can’t find anyone/anything to explain the difference
Room correction or different speakers with narrow directivity but I wouldn't worry about it.