Let me rephrase. It probably is not accurate to say that the source (the recording being reproduced and the format in which it is fixed) is the most important component in the audio chain because a system can only be as good as its weakest link. That is not really what I meant. What I should have said is that in almost all digital audiophile systems the CD format is itself the weakest link in the audio chain.
"Garbage in = garbage out" is a well accepted guiding audiophile principle. I think a corollary of "garbage in = garbage out" is that if you are feeding your system with an insufficient digital format, you are ALWAYS going to get insufficient results out of your system at some level.
This is why so many digital audiophiles, I think, get an initial thrill from a new component but ultimately are not satisfied. A new pre-amplifier and amplifier can be a profound upgrade, but as a matter of logic, you can only be hearing more of the 16-bit PCM sampled at 44,100 Hz (1411.2 kbit/s) 1411.2 kbit/s CD that you are feeding those components, or you are coloring the sound in some way that sounds better to you. So you make your upgrade and are impressed with the results in the short term but over the long term you probably won't be satisfied because the underlying problem is still there. Your source material is not nearly as good as what the artist and the engineers recording the artist intended you to hear because there is information missing. Digital audiophiles understand this subconsciously and it drives them crazy.
Just when you think you've remedied one CD insufficiency, another pops up like a game of whack-a-mole. This is why end-game manufacturers like dCS and Esoteric are building DSD upsampling into their CD transports and developing upsampling devices for music servers. (See the new Scarlatti Upsampler or Paganini system) These systems interpolate high resolution audio from a standard CD and thus at least partially remedy the problem.
Using the Purcell upsampler, I am sometimes shocked by which CDs suddenly become audiophile grade material. Rock recordings I always thought were mediocre suddenly become stunning. Apparently, the recording engineers got it right--it is the CD format that was screwing it up. It isn't true for all of my CDs but it is true for a vast majority of them.
If we had more players using that sort of technology, or a viable high resolution replacement for CD, audiophiles could at least start with a source that is not inherently flawed. The hobby would be more about enhancing the source than remedying or masking it and audiophiles would probably enjoy themselves more in between each upgrade. As it stands, we are basically just trying to hear more of something that is not good to begin with.
"Garbage in = garbage out" is a well accepted guiding audiophile principle. I think a corollary of "garbage in = garbage out" is that if you are feeding your system with an insufficient digital format, you are ALWAYS going to get insufficient results out of your system at some level.
This is why so many digital audiophiles, I think, get an initial thrill from a new component but ultimately are not satisfied. A new pre-amplifier and amplifier can be a profound upgrade, but as a matter of logic, you can only be hearing more of the 16-bit PCM sampled at 44,100 Hz (1411.2 kbit/s) 1411.2 kbit/s CD that you are feeding those components, or you are coloring the sound in some way that sounds better to you. So you make your upgrade and are impressed with the results in the short term but over the long term you probably won't be satisfied because the underlying problem is still there. Your source material is not nearly as good as what the artist and the engineers recording the artist intended you to hear because there is information missing. Digital audiophiles understand this subconsciously and it drives them crazy.
Just when you think you've remedied one CD insufficiency, another pops up like a game of whack-a-mole. This is why end-game manufacturers like dCS and Esoteric are building DSD upsampling into their CD transports and developing upsampling devices for music servers. (See the new Scarlatti Upsampler or Paganini system) These systems interpolate high resolution audio from a standard CD and thus at least partially remedy the problem.
Using the Purcell upsampler, I am sometimes shocked by which CDs suddenly become audiophile grade material. Rock recordings I always thought were mediocre suddenly become stunning. Apparently, the recording engineers got it right--it is the CD format that was screwing it up. It isn't true for all of my CDs but it is true for a vast majority of them.
If we had more players using that sort of technology, or a viable high resolution replacement for CD, audiophiles could at least start with a source that is not inherently flawed. The hobby would be more about enhancing the source than remedying or masking it and audiophiles would probably enjoy themselves more in between each upgrade. As it stands, we are basically just trying to hear more of something that is not good to begin with.