Should Sound Quality of Computer Audio be improved

Ivan, "audio-only" computers already exist. See Linn Akurate and Bryston BDP-1, amongst others. However, it is not that difficult to gather info on the net about optimizing your own off-the-shelf computer system for server use. Most of us who frequent forums like this have done it. It's actually kind of hands-on and fun! The beauty of it is that for less than $1K you can get an optimized Mac Mini, for example. Then add a suitable DAC and you can have a state of the art digital front end for way less than a top-flight optical player.

Rare to be able to do something like that in the crazy world of high fidelity audio!

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".

Thanks for the pointer Hfisher3380 - I think I'm beginning to see the light...this definitely looks like something I want to keep my eye on.

Oh give me a break Petty - just when I think you're verging on a breakthrough and making a bit of sense you start talking in circles again. Obviously a better master will lead to better sound quality - no matter what the format. You have to look no further than the latest Rush album - which I downloaded in 24/96 but is well nigh unlistenable on my system due to ridiculous compression. Output resolution does not always correlate with ultimate sound quality.

But you are being ignorant and hypocritical if you have the nerve to criticize - well I'm not sure who you're criticizing, sometimes it appears to be us - for downsampling the original recording to lower resolution downloadable files. At least with computer audio there is always a possibility that they'll make available a higher resolution master - and they are starting to with increasing frequency. With CD you'll always be limited to a 16/44 downsample - HDCD, XRCD, XRCD2...whatever, there is no way of getting better than 16/44. You're criticism here is nothing more than ignorant hypocrisy - and I would hope that deep down you know it.

In the end, I frankly don't really care what you think, as I've said before. Sometimes I just wish you would actually pay attention and stop double-talking out of your you-know-what.