I've been following this thread with interest. The OP shared a concern I have, which is that one could spend a lot of money on high rez files that don't sound that great. The response to his request has not exactly been overwhelming.
If only 3 people in the AG community can recommend good sounding hi rez files, this does not bode well for the economic viability of hi rez audio. It means that either no one is buying hi rez files, or the ones they are buying don't sound that great.
I had about a dozen DSD files that came with my Sony HAPZ1. I listened to them pretty carefully when the unit first came. They sounded OK, but they weren't my kind of music. Several months later, with a modwright modification in place and about 100 hours burn in, I listened to one of the original DSD tracks again, a cut from Yo Yo Ma's Appalachian Journey. I was pretty much blown away by what I heard. It was amazingly good, in contrast to my initial assessment back in April. If this is typical of what hi rez DSD audio delivers (played back through my ModWright HAPZ1), I'm going to be willing to spend $25 for selected new releases. In fact, I am thinking about buying that Ma album, despite the fact it is outside my normal hard core classical genre.
