Should Sound Quality of Computer Audio be improved

Even if a recording is mastered in 32 bit, once you hear it on a redbook CD player you are hearing it in 16/44. That's just the way it is, Petty - that's the technology.

On the other hand, it is possible to hear such a recording in its native resolution on a computer, of course, since the original file is on a computer.

I agree with you that competition is a good thing - but the market and consumers will ultimately decide which formats succeed and which fail.

I agree with you Petty. Some folks out there already know the very limitations you point out with computer audio and they are beginning to take matters into their own hands and move the ball forward, not waiting around for the industry to catch up. This is how I suspect the revolution will get started (whether it will be televised or not is another matter). For one example, you could go to the facebook site of Alan Maher Designs and take some time to sift through his ongoing posts (some recent, others past) about computer audio, exactly what kind of computer Alan envisions is required for music, his own attainable gains in sound quality that can be had with his method of ripping CD's compared to CD's by themselves, water cooling, superority of FLAC vs WAV, etc, etc - all rather advanced, I admit, but to me this sort of thing is what's needed - there needs ot be a full-blown example in the marketplace that people can point to and recognize that it works. Expensive?? Initial iterations usually are, but you can always streamline from there. First you just gotta show people that the concept works (and how Well that it works). I believe that day is coming, but I imagine that we can only depended on computer companies to wait around until someone else begins eating their lunch before they will begin to decide exactly what they want to do about it.

PO,

I think what you need to understand is we are on the sharp edge of this technology. 32bit 64 bit whatever.

How do you expect to get true DXD when no one is fully recording with it?

As you have seen many of these DSD and DXD recordings are only mastered or remastered using this sample rate. Which is great. One less bunch of crap in the signal path.

This is not about computer manufactures. This is not about download. This is not even about a spinning disks of any variety. This is about the pro community adopting fully this technology. This can only happen gradually.

The pro community are very interested in making high quality products but unfortunately music has become cheap. So the music producers are already struggling with lack of investment. Just like many other industries in these times. They have great equipment already, and yes there is the possibly of the last word in quality, but it means starting all over again for studios to fully adopt it.

So how do you expect to continue? One way would be to buy a DAC which can up sample to frequencies that make brick wall filters unnessassary.

This is not about you and your computer. As mentioned begore you are fine. You just need the correct software to decode whatever comes along.

In the meantime pretty much everything is recorded at much higher than CD quality. Most of it making a nonsense of the anologue vs digital debate.

Film is pushing the boundaries with real 3D and very high sampling rates for music and effects. But I fear the film industry could go the same way as the music industry as the expense is so high and profit low for the majority.

But none of this is going to change your attitude. You have some kind of bee in your bonnet. You have available some remarkable music and you are able to control it in ways you could only dream about 10 years ago.

Sound quality has got better every year and you are still complaining...The ball is rolling.

I do understand your point (finally) but you will never really know what you are listening to. So trust your ears. Music first. Recording process & "format" second.

Find music you love or moves you and stop trying to be clever. It would be like me saying I only listen to music which has been soley recorded using Neve mixing desks, lexicon reverbs and Fairchild compressors. It's a bit daft.

Hfisher3380, you act like you have never heard of
"Headroom". I have tried many XRCD, XRCD 24, K2 HD CD.
All of them playable on standard CD Players. Obviously,
on 16 Bit/44.1 CD. The higher Sampling Rate of the Master
(Or Remaster) does make an audible difference! There was
a time when everyone believed that the Entropy of the
Universe could be reversed, and multiple generations of
CD Copies would sound exactly the same as the original.
Cooler heads prevailed, but now Entropy reversal myth is
back once again with Computer Files. Must we change all of
the Laws of the Universe with Flat Earth logic again? Been
there, done that! Can we learn from our mistakes, and
finally move on? You make a Copy you are going to lose
a little (Maybe insignificant to some, maybe significant
to others). If the original Copy is of a Higher Resolution
(If it is done correctly), maybe you will lose a little less with "MORE" Resolution Headroom in the Master. You can
argue the merits of this. I just know that I can hear a difference as opposed to original 16 Bit/ 44.1 Digital Masters used for CD. Concidering we ended up with 12 to 14 Bit Copies of these in CD, just about ANY improvement would be welcome. I certainly can hear it. Not to say that it is always perfect, nothing is in the Digital World. That
includes Computer Audio. That is the reason to take the
best from many Digital Formats including Computer Audio.
If "It is The Music that Matters", it is the only logical
thing to do. Single Format logic would be the anti-thesis
of this, even if this "Makes No Sense".