Rumours of a CD Revival...

Wall art for a retro themed place, I imagine. I can think of better things to use to do the other stuff:-)

Vinyl, as already mentioned here, does however offer more engagement with the listening to it, with all the visible engineering to use and see. CDPs do not, and hence there is little chance of them coming back to the extent turntables have. And since they are just a medium for playing digital music, there isn't even an arguable case for better sound quality of the same files played via a NAS/wireless play.

Reel to reel tape - I remember lusting for an elaborate Sony deck in the early seventies! When 7.5 inches per second was the analogy of today’s lossless to the “lossy” obtained from 3.75 inches. I don’t remember any double blind tests that established audible superiority at home from the faster running tape. Of course, with no Google, it wasn't easy to get hold of any writing on the subject.

Why do you not use the native Spotify app instead? Very convenient to use on both Echo and Sonos via target speaker/group selection.

If you, or anyone else, can’t tell the difference then all it shows it that ‘hi-res’ formats are snake oil, surely…. and that the tech from 40 years ago already outperforms human hearing...

@amun 

It shows that most people will never hear the difference.  I mean maybe you will hear something if you spend tens of thousands on audiophile equipment and have extraordinary hearing.  But how many of those people are out there really? Most mortals spend at most a thousand or two on an audio setup so for 99.9% of the people its really a distinction without a difference. 

I qualify even the above by adding: in a listening room that is quieter than almost any found in a typical home even late at night because these differences will not rise above the ambient noise floor in a domestic environment.

You are not alone.

An interesting activity is to collect various copies of the same recording session. CD, tape, LP and compare them. For example play a UK, Japanese, and US pressing of the same album. Compare pressings from different eras. You might find that they sound quite different. When possible, include a MFSL release.

Personally, I find the noise and various distortions inherent in tape and LP unattractive. I’m not saying that digital is always “better”, due to sloppy, uninformed processing along the way, but the noise and distortion floors can be much lower with digital technology.

Considering the bragging rights available to the person with the golden ears, esoteric audio gear and perfect listening environment you’d have thought that at least one of these folks would have set up a proctored, double-blind ABX test to prove just how superior their setup was.

So far I haven’t seen anybody credible claiming they are able to reliably identify music formats that meet or exceed CD quality.

https://infogalactic.com/info/ABX_test

Down a ways he gets to bit depth testing: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/fun-with-digital-audio-%E2%80%93-bit-perfect-audibility-testing/

Test files: https://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_highdefinitionaudio.php

Quick fun test: https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

It isn't just for this that there are no such tests. There also are no such tests for stereo amps of similar power delivery/distortion spec, DACs, cables that meet the thickness required for the cable run in question - regardless of the prices of the items being compared, even where price differences may be in orders of magnitude. 

But for each, there are endless subjective claims, led by the media that writes about these. Human frailties make this domain a target rich environment for both scamsters and for those that are just more prone to sincerely believing whatever they see in print and who are not familiar with the subject of psychological biases.

On music formats, I haven’t seen such tests for even CD format lossless v 256/320k lossy, where headphones have not been used for listening.

I understand the rational of ABX, but I have a little difficulty with the thought that the ABX box is perfect and the attached equipment is not. We built an ABC..X box using relays that might be used in the actual ABX boxes quoted in reviews. On day one it was apparent to all of us that the ABC...X box masked some of the differences between the devices. We are not the self proclaimed “golden ear” types, we are simply a group of engineers, musicians, and regular folk who can pay attention. And, we are not afraid to disagree with one another with respect to “best”. Yes, we are aware of and can deal with comparison complications associated with level differences.

Thinking of building an ABX box brings to mind so many possible issues that I’d have hated to think of it, even back in my electronics technician era.

Every component in the audio path is critical and any interactions with the power supply or neighboring equipment that vary by input selected would be big issues.

You can buy matched components of some types, the price is usually not pretty. Others you’d have to test and match individually.

Using a circuit-board versus direct wiring only gives you a choice of the undesired impacts of either, not a “good” option.

Relays are tough, you’d likely want magnetic latching so you could eliminate external current flows during the tests. Contact types, who knows mercury wetted, gold, vacuum sealed unobtainium?

Connectors, solder joins, vibration proofing, too much for my poor brain.

Maybe you could ABX test the ABX box by feeding each side the exact same signal?