High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.


Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires
Of course Mercury Living Presence classical CDs were produced by entirely different people than whoever produced the pop stuff. So the jury is still out on those Golden Age classical CDs from the 90s as to their Polarity. The jury is still out on the RCA Living Stereo CDs from the same time period, which frankly don’t sound that great to me. As to their Absolute Polarity, who the hell knows? As for Deutsche Grammophon I would believe that entire label is OOP. By the way when I refer to Absolute Polarity I’m referring to the case where the recording is 180 degrees from the correct Absolute Polarity. 
The 3 box set of 180 RCA Living Stereo CDs were remastered and sound fantastic overall.  On the level of the Mercury CDs.  Also, the Heifetz/Piatagorsky set sounds amazing.  Also the Friedman, Browning and Dorfmann sets are very fine listening.  The Friedman/Previn Franck/Debussy CD beats the already fine Japanese CD from a decade ago.  There are some very fine remasterings being done.  I can wholeheartedly recommend the Decca mono box and the Recital box.  
I've been reading on line concerning absolute versus inverted polarity.  Let's say my CDs are mostly (92%) inverted polarity.  They sound great.  Why?  Maybe my equipment, speakers and/or CD player make polarity inversions whose end result inverts polarity.  The combination of an inverted polarity CD and an inverted end result from the audio system equals absolute polarity, where two mistakes make it right.  So quoted in http://www.absolutepolarity.com/   
That’s exactly what I’ve been saying in almost every single Polarity post the past few years. Hel-loo! But how do you know whether your system is in correct Absolute Polarity? Even if it’s 50/50 there’s no use crying about it, no matter what Absolute Polarity your system is in.
"But how do you know whether your system is in correct Absolute Polarity? "

I've have also been reading material concerning absolute versus inverted polarity.  According to the author, polarity is most easily determined by utilizing either a "Polarometer"  or "Polar e Detect" developed by ronco and sold exclusively on TV and at better department stores.

Alternatively,  one may look at your system through a mirror, if the image is reversed, your system is in correct absolute polarity, ahhh, or maybe its the opposite way around, have to look that up again?   Naturally, if you are one of our friends located south of the equator, the opposite of the north positive for inverted polarity will indicate southern correct absolute polarity.