24/192 Music Downloads and why they make no sense

Excellent article. I understand that Acoustic Sounds sells high quality redbook CD. As the author said, the biggest quality issue is RECORDING, ENGINNERING AND MASTERING. Most of the rest is voodoo. Thanks KAPA. I'll stick with my CDP for now and try out some of Acoustic Sounds' high quality redbook CDs and report back.

They can sound good, but the selection of recordings is very small and the price is high.

If you want Hi-Rez and choice, buy SACD's. Only they are 90% classical, 8% jazz, and 2% pop/rock. Amazon has over 3000 SACD's.

At the end the quality of how it is recorded is so much more important than the system how it is recorded. I have stunning recordings with 192khz. But I also have some which do not convince. I have have redbook recordings at 44.1khz which sound stunning converted to 384khz.

I add, better to buy Blu-Ray discs if you can find material you like, say Miles/Blue.

From our experience, the quality of recording and mastering are the paramount factors effecting sound quality (not to mention performance itself....).

It seem to me both theoretically and experimentally that for Hi-Rez playback the most important is not bit depth (e.g. 24 bit vs 32 bits) but sampling rate. Perhaps for this reason, today, DSD playbacks are best sounding provided everything else is equal

Simon
Musicia Pristina