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The Modern DAC killed High Resolution Music - has Stereophile proven it?

Hi Everyone,
One thing I've mentioned a lot is that over the past 10 years or so DAC's really closed the delta in how well they play CD (i.e. Redbook) vs. high resolution (96/24 or higher). I've stated for a long time that the delta closed so much that high resolution music no longer seemed to be as important.

Stereophile just released an interesting set of measurements regarding jitter performance of older players vs. today. It's not absolute proof of my thesis, but it certainly is correlated.


https://www.stereophile.com/content/2020-jitter-measurements

One thing, as I commented, you don't have to compare old DACs to the $15,000 Bartok. The Mytek Brooklyn and others in the $2,000 price range also demonstrate this, and in fact has a very similar jitter rejection profile to the Bartok. The point to me is, almost all decent DAC's have jumped leaps and bounds in jitter performance. That's for sure.  Perhaps this explains the disappearing gap in performance as well between Redbook and Hi Rez?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mytek-hifi-brooklyn-da-processor%C2%96headphone-amplifier-measur... 

erik_squires
vermonster
20 posts
 
The belief that "people can' t tell the difference" is often incorrect.  You should add "Yet".
When selling audio in the mid-70's, we were regularly able to teach people what to listen for and they often began to listen more critically.   I bet a class or two could up the percentage of those who can detect  higher resolution.
blainer55
47 posts
 
And then they listen to streamed music on their cell phone speakers...Some (many?) people really don't seem to care. 
wrenth
26 posts
 
I own Chord Dave and Blu and... in spite of Blu outstanding scaler DSD files sound better then CD not mention Tidal Masters. So no matter who says such crap it is not true. I suppose that these people do not have proper equipment to hear the difference.
Thx,
stibi
51 posts
 
Hi @millercarbon, although I usually appreciate your posts as very informative, in this particular one you are not correct. Delta means difference, so @erik_squires statement makes perfect sense. Let’s just enjoy or hobby :)
tastyfreeze's avatar
tastyfreeze
135 posts
 
Yep.  To enjoy life in the modern times you need to enjoy both sides.  
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