Just another vote here for an Listening Session converter shootout. I would also like to hear signals with and without the converter to accurately understand the differences in the sound. Thanks so much!!! Keep up the great work! p.s.- If anyone can direct me to an existing test, that would be swell.
Thanks, Dan. Makes me want to do my own cd and charge $50!! Hahaha. But seriously, I appreciate the link. About the mp3's not cutting it for this kind of test, copperx, it really makes you wonder who the quest for top sound quality is intended for these days, with everyone listening to compressed files. AAC sounds kinda inferior to me as well. I'm a vinyl fan myself. Nothing I can really do about it. Also, I would welcome any input on the subject of the future of conversion, sampling rates, 16-bit cd's,etc... Will high end converters be made obsolete like everything else?? Or increasingly cheaper?
Lower-end converters will be cheaper as time goes by, for example 24/96 will be cheaper when CPUs and Hard Drives are big/fast enough to support 100+ tracks of 192khz. But quality converters will always be quality converters ... if they sufficed for some generation, they will suffice for another one, even if they are not the greatest and latest. Say that for example, DSD recording catches on, PCM will still be used, since DSP-wise is easier to program processing algorightms for it, etc.
About your concern of everybody hearing compressed audio ... well, it always begins with the source. You can't say MP3s are the "great equalizers" of sound quality ... you can still detect production/recording nuances of different songs/albums through MP3s, can't you? So, yeah, a better source (a recording w/good converters) will always sound better than a bad source, even through MP3s.
