30 Years of Perfect Sound?

My first player was a first or second gen Magnavox, one of the early popular units. It was a mixed bag. My digital has only gotten to the point of competing with my vinyl in recent years. That is more due to me and my priorities than the state of the technology at any particular time I would say.

I do think that the sound quality of many CDs started to peak in the 90's sometime. Earlier CDs still sound good sometimes but were more hit or miss. SOme seemed to be just cranked out with little thought prior to meet the demands of the new burgeoning market.

Mr. Rockwell should stick with photography articles. Yet another bit-head caught up in the numbers game - some of his diatribe sounds like something straight out of the mouth of a typical clueless Best Buy employee. Here is what I found most amusing:

"Today's moral? Buy more CDs, put them on your iPod and computer if you like, and enjoy them. Get a great DAC if you've got computer stuff to enjoy, but don't waste your time futzing with computer equipment and music software when you can just buy CDs and enjoy the music itself instead of fiddling with stereo gear. God help us that some people waste time fiddling on their computers just to get music; half the reason the general public loves the CD over LP is simple convenience and never having to align a cartridge, flip an album or clean records or worry about wearing them out."

Just wow! Note that he emphasizes the 'general public' who loves CD's over LP's. And that is just the audience this article is targeted.

"CDs as a recording medium are completely uncompressed, unadulterated and bit-for-bit accurate, even if you boil them or drill a hole through them."

tee hee...good to know

The net... For all the hypsters trying to sell "high resolution" hardware and software... what really matters is the mastering process.

The only part of the article that I really take exception with is that on SACD.

From the moment that I auditioned the product upon its initial release in 1999, I have always found it to sound extremely good and much, much closer to live music than CD (which to my ears sounds noticeably flatter and less realtistic, with less tonal saturation and authenticity than SACD).

SACDs can (often) fool me into thinking that I am hearing live musicians. CDs have never done that for me.

I don't hear any problem with SACD's high frequency noise shaping (probably because I am not a bat and cannot hear ultrasonic, greater than 20-kHz frequenicies).

He can throw all the numbers and "logic" at me that he wants, but it doesn't
explain why my shoulders hunch and my brow furrows when digitally sourced
music is playing, and I relax and have a positive emotional response to analog.
24-bit adds nothing? Then why does 24/96 sound like a breath of fresh air after
listening to some 16/44.1 demos? And I'm talking about John Atkinson
personally demo-ing his recordings from his laptop, and the same thing from
Peter McGrath's laptop for demo-ing Wilson Sashas and Maxxes?