Describe the "new HiFi sound"?

There are a lot of topics in this thread! I don’t know what the "new hifi sound" is, but I think it’s worth including the art of recording in any discussion of new sound. Artists, engineers and producers have broadened the palette of sound being recorded. This isn’t as simple as an eq curve; it’s about adding octaves, pitching percussion, playing with phase to create soundstage effects and carving out eq segments to let instruments blend. I’m not judging old or new, but the sound of an old recording like Crosby Stills vs newer recording artists is dramatic and largely due to the recording artistry. We are all creatures of our time, and artists creating good or less good within the given limitations.

@decooney

I checked with the dealer re: Audio Note today. I own the Sony "Signature" preamp which I would be replacing as my two channel preamp. I asked about the Audio Note "Signature" preamp, the M10, it costs over $100K☹

Do you know why you need to spend $100K+ on a two channel system? That is what it costs to make it sound decent. For the same amount of money you could buy an entire SOA immersive audio system, a projector, a screen, and room treatments. Did you buy one?

Hey @kota1 I did not mean to confuse Was referring to the lower priced AN gear, and the idea of visiting a friendly dealer to just go for a fun demo listen. Did not mean to imply to go buy it. No, I don’t own any of the higher $ AN units. There are some lower priced units, some nice used stuff out there in the under $5-10k range used. Nope, I don’t own any of that higher priced AN gear. A friendly local dealer I’ve bought other gear from has listening sessions, and I sometimes look at and listen to some of the trade-up gear. If you get a chance, it’s fun to go listen to some of the low watt gear, efficient speakers, etc. I did drool over the Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister Phono integrated amplifier once, now discontinued. And the AN Ongaku amp is out of the stratosphere for me, but fun to listen to if you get a chance some day. Both a work of art on the inside. Yes, some of the upper line AN gear is ultra expensive, agree. Best of luck.

@decooney

What I like about Sony is they bring together all of their resources, they invented the CD with Philips, they invented DSD, you have the TV’s, the PJ’s, the Playstation, Sony Music, Sony Camera, Sony Walkman, Sony Pictures and then they decided to pivot and focus on hirez audio in the 2000’s. The CEO gave the engineering team an open checkbook and said build me the BEST music playback system we can make. They took years in development to get ready and came back with the Sony Signature line. When you have the resources and budget of Sony you can do stuff basically impossible for boutique manufacturers. Audio Note Signature pre= $100K+. The Sony TAZH1ES Signature pre/dac/headphone amp= $2200.

Video:

https://youtu.be/h8pzx7SjRtY

As you know the issue with recordings (especially streaming) is the quality and resolution of the file. I see people squabbling about redbook, PCM, hirez, MQA, etc. I like DSD but good luck finding the content you want. Then you have this unit which takes Sony’s DSD creds and Sony Music’s library of hirez PCM and DSD master tapes  and they can create something like this:

Convert any Source to DSD

Personalizing sound with the new DSD Remastering Engine. Offering double the conversion accuracy of previous models, the new DSD Remastering Engine let you convert all PCM music sources into DSD 11.2MHz.

The technology utilizes FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) to convert any signal into the DSD sound format.

DSEE HX upscaling technology features four additional modes to the standard: female vocal, male vocal, percussions and strings.
Review:

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sony-ta-zh1es.22253/reviews