Like Mnyb said, do not be saddened by this. I have yet to find a single person who I can verify as passing an ABX between 320kbps and lossless WAV/FLAC when the music is encoded with a good encoder like a newer version of LAME (I've tested about 10 "audiophiles" using combination of headphones or speakers)... Looking at the audiophile sites, one gets the impression as if this is some common feat! When I did the online MP3 test on my blog earlier this year, I know that some very outspoken members of other forums got the result wrong so I know for a fact that they're unjustifiably confident and just plain wrong about their self assessment.
Of course this is not to say nobody can tell a difference, just that I think it's extremely rare. Knowing this "fact" for oneself is a sign of honesty and integrity IMO.
I agree, no need to chase after overkill. As I've expressed in the past, I'm happy to have 24/96 as the limit of what I would bother to download (even if I buy 24/192, it's almost always converted down to 24/96). At 24/96, there's really ZERO possible audio information missing for human ears assuming one is even concerned about "brickwall" issues with 44kHz sampling. As for DSD, I see it as an interesting "toy". I've written about it including PCM --> DSD128 upsampling and I find it sounds different, but the effect is like any DSP that can add some euphonia / body to the sound IMO. Still can't get myself to honestly believe there's anything special with DSD that cannot be captured with good PCM.
I'm still unhappy about the DSD file format - useless old DSF & DFF - poor tagging and compression capabilities; what a waste of storage.
Of course this is not to say nobody can tell a difference, just that I think it's extremely rare. Knowing this "fact" for oneself is a sign of honesty and integrity IMO.
I agree, no need to chase after overkill. As I've expressed in the past, I'm happy to have 24/96 as the limit of what I would bother to download (even if I buy 24/192, it's almost always converted down to 24/96). At 24/96, there's really ZERO possible audio information missing for human ears assuming one is even concerned about "brickwall" issues with 44kHz sampling. As for DSD, I see it as an interesting "toy". I've written about it including PCM --> DSD128 upsampling and I find it sounds different, but the effect is like any DSP that can add some euphonia / body to the sound IMO. Still can't get myself to honestly believe there's anything special with DSD that cannot be captured with good PCM.
I'm still unhappy about the DSD file format - useless old DSF & DFF - poor tagging and compression capabilities; what a waste of storage.
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