Does HiRez really sound better?

What a pretty thought, that we will see significant improvements in CD and hi Rez for years to come. It appears to me that in fact the quality of CDs has steadily gone down the tubes ever since they started compressing the music for some hare brained reason. As a matter if fact generally speaking the dynamic range of new and remastered CDs has in some cases gone from a value of 15 to a value of 8 or 9 according to the Official Dynamic Range Data Base.

Geoffkait, Dynamic range is only one factor in sound quality and not all cds are overly dynamically compressed, nor will all cds be overly compressed in the future.

If you listen to grammy type pop music, compression is a problem. However, there are many cds released in more adult oriented genres that are not overly dynamically compressed. I'm surprised you didn't know that. So the problem of dynamic compression is not an issue on many cds and SACDs.

Meanwhile, new cd players are improving many different factors in sound quality rapidly, and we are moving from the era of cd on to hi rez digital, which holds the promise of even greater improvements in sound quality. Not all hi rez files or hi rez players will sound better, many will though.

Rbbert, I agree about wow and flutter. Misaligned tape heads (most weren't adjustable) and particles shedding from the tape gumming up the tape path also contributed to poor sound quality for cassettes.

I didn't say ALL CDs are compressed. But the trend is not your friend. And at least for me dynamics is VERY important. If it ain't got that swing it don't mean a thing. Music when you cut away all the jibber jabber is all about dynamics and microdynamics. Everything else is secondary.

What is the motivation to compress? I don't see any cost savings for the vendor.

I bought a "value pack" of some Byrd's CDs, which was wretched, and wondered why the sound quality was "cheapened."

It's not a cost savings, electroslacker. There are 2 things driving it:
1. the perception that with much listening being done in high noise environments, resulting in quieter portions of the recording being lost in the (ambient) noise floor.
2. the psycho-acoustic phenomenon that causes us to perceive slightly louder playback as being "better".