Digital Emperor has no clothes

Yet another bit-head attempting to explain why audiophiles are nuts. While the author of the piece is undoubtedly intelligent and appears to know what he's talking about, his numbers-game discourse means nothing to me. Sure, 24/192 files are probably a waste of time when one experiences them on consumer hi-fi (that is why SACD never took off) but in the context of a properly set up and fine tuned high end system, most high resolution files are clearly superior. It is all relative to what system these files are played.

Keep in mind that not all hi res files are created equal - many of them sound inferior when compared to their CD counterpart. Could it be that the listening panel was comparing two files of dubious quality?

I do give the author credit for suggesting that his consumer hifi audience buy better headphones than their $20 buds. Good to know.

Are we having fun yet?

Oh yes we are! Remember, bits are bits and nothing else matters. 8^)

Of course 16/44.1 sounds better than 24/192. And Mp3 sounds better than 16/44.1. Everyone knows that.

I have a VERY modest system. My sources consist of a Sonos and a Squeezebox Touch, both of which pull files off of an NAS. My Preamp is a NAD C162, Dac is an XDA-1, Amp is an Aragon 2004, Speakers are System Audio SA505 bookshelves and my sub is a REL T3. Interconnects and digital cables are from Blue Jeans Cables and speaker cables are Canare 4S11. Not department store, but definitely not high end.

I can definitely tell the difference between hi rez and none hi rez files without much difficulty, most of the time. As mentioned, it depends on the quality of the recording.

I've downloaded some files from HDTracks that left me feeling like I wasted my money and I've downloaded others that made my system sound better than it should.