Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Victims of marketing.

A few years ago at RMAF we held a contest (with some pretty cool prizes) to determine if people could guess the resolution of of five songs.

We had a 25 song playlist printed on a single page with columns for song names and check boxes to the right for "16/44.1" and "24/96" and "24/192." We literally passed out a dozen clip boards and had a pile of sharpened pencils at the info table when you enter.

Each Attendee had to stay for five songs and mark a check next to what resolution they thought each song was. We had a few hundred Attendees enter the contest.

How many songs out of five do you think the average person got right?

NONE.

We had about a dozen prizes and had trouble finding enough people that got ONE out of five guesses correct. We had to give one of the prizes to a person that crossed out and wrote over but their crossed out guess was right (seriously).

Not one person could even get two right.

BTW, more than half of the songs we used were nothing more than well recorded 16-bit 44.1KHz Reed Book CD rips.

What does that tell you?

What does that tell you?

That my Amy > Bob > Amy > Bob test is best.

I believe the quality of a recording is something like over 80% the quality of the original master and less than 20% the specific digital format and resolution it is released in.