Can even a Novice hear differences in Sound Qualit

Pettyofficer, some people are more embarrassed by someone telling them they have spinach in their teeth than they are by discovering when they get home that they were speaking all day with spinach in their teeth.

I promise never to do it again.

Sincere apologies.

To address the topic, I believe a novice can hear differences in sound quality, but not *all* novices can do so, and many novices don't care. I also believe companies in the business of selling recorded music are unlikely to make a concerted effort to invest more time and money in higher quality/higher resolution recordings. The music buying public essentially rejected the high resolution experiments (SACD/DVD-A) by not buying enough recordings or playback equipment. So, discussions among audiophiles about the future of high resolution recordings are now essentially rhetorical.

A tangent or sidebar
SACD and DVD-A were hurt more, IMO, by their makers who refused to remember their earlier experience with going from mono to stereo. The price increase was all of $1.00. Had they done a simiiliar, maybe $2.00 difference these formats would be much more prevalent. It was not so much the public deciding against the hi-rez sound as their makers wanting to make a killing and in doing so almost killed the format.

08-06-09: Uru975
It was not so much the public deciding against the hi-rez sound as their makers wanting to make a killing and in doing so almost killed the format.

Price was certainly a factor. PS...have you noticed how the prices of out-of-print SACDs is skyrocketing?

When I wrote the public rejected high resolution formats, I didn't mean the public said, "Hey, we don't like the sound of high resolution audio". What I meant, and which goes to your point, is that the public simply didn't buy the products in sufficient numbers to make business sense for the music companies and hardware manufacturers to continue with the formats on a large scale.

Portability is the focus of the present mass market music business (the only market the music companies and hardware companies really care about). Only when portable playback devices have the inexpensive, large capacity drives to store high resolution music files will better quality recordings perhaps receive attention from the mass market music business in downloadable formats.

Wishing for better quality recordings is noble. It doesn't take a great deal of listening experience or music ownership to know what's possible even in the redbook CD format.

We'll see in a year from now if any real progress has been made by the music companies and hardware manufacturers toward higher quality, mass-marketed music.

The Public did reject SACD/DVD-Audio, but not for the reasons that you believe. It wasn't an experiment in High Rez. Digital, the manufacturers simply did not have all of their ducks in a row with sound quality prior to releasing SACD/DVD-Audio. They pretty much made the same mistake when CD was first released. Both of these technologies were premature as far as supporting a High Quality Sound Format. The Public was taken to the cleaners, with the supposed improved Sound Quality of CD. The Public giving the benefit of the doubt to the technological prowness of CD, presuming improved Sound Quality would follow. They are still waiting for the 'Perfect Sound Forever', despite decades of development of the CD Format. Some major improvements were made, but the older Format of Analog still sounded better. How much longer is the Public supposed to wait on the development of the CD Format.
SACD/DVD-Audio came along, prematurely again, and this time the Public wasn't going to give the New Format the benefit of the doubt. The Sound of SACD/DVD-Audio was judged as being only slightly better than CD, the Public not wanting to go down the same path of a supposed improved New Format just like when CD was new. The point isn't that the New Formats only sound slightly better than CD, but that the comparison Format of CD still sounds poorly when compared to the best Analog Standards. What does this say about the Sound Quality of SACD/DVD-Audio? It sounds only slightly better than CD, but it still doesn't measure up to Analog, an older Format. There has been three attempts at New Formats, CD/SACD/DVD-Audio, with 30 years of development in Digital Recording, and they still can't get it right! Three Strikes, and the American Public have decided 'your out'! Sounds only slightly better, means that the American Public knows that Manufacturers can do alot better, the Public demanding more! The American Public is unwilling to invest in a New Format, unless there is an improvement in Sound Quality that atleast approaches that of the best Analog. They simply feel cheated by decades of CD, and they are not about to be cheated again by SACD/DVD-Audio, with only a slight improvement in Sound Quality. They want more, not less Sound quality. If less was the goal, then everyone would be chucking their Records and CD's, for SACD/DVD-Audio Disks! That is simply not reality, SACD/DVD-Audio are going out of business, because no one will buy them. Slightly better, is not good enough! Better to go without, than to settle for slightly better!

Hail to the holy Tvad grail of audio and now the english language. Has he reached the 3,000th bloviation on this site alone. I know he is on others, just loves to see his name and expressions in print. Simple amazing !!