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What I'm asking the masses is... at what point does digital become indistinguishable from tape?
I believe the sincerity of the question and will provide my answer based on personal experiences, hardly scientific. I did own an analog gear of excellent quality (and pedigree
). I did find myself listening more to the Burmester Transport?DAC combo much more than LP. It could have been a matter of convenience (no cleaning, fast access, etc) yet it was clear that CD was good enough for me to listen almost exclusively. I had however, then the impression that LP was superior in general... No serious comparison made, just a general feeling that LP was "better"... From that point I extrapolated that R2R was even better. I had then an R2R and although no access to first (low?) generation copies of Master Tapes, I could feel it superior to CD. I repeat that I never conducted a serious comparison.. Blind or otherwise. The few old tapes i could find (some of London Phase4 Stereo, 7.5 ips and some RCA, Decca and others) sounded very, very good but I didn't have the equivalent LPs or CDs to compare them to and frankly did not care ...Yet the general feeling and impression was that R2R was superior to both LP and CD .. then came HRx ...
This long winded introduction is to place myself in the debate. I believe based on what I have heard from tape and from the better digital. That The better digital surpass anything analog has to offer. Preferences are another thing I have read here account of people preferring the sound from a tape to the direct feed... I mean how can one interpret this? Any rationality would say that a copy can only be equal to the original, it cannot be better. One can prefer a copy to an original, on that I have no problem. Stating the superiority of a copy to the original is absurd. Which brings me to your question..At last.
I would think that 24/92 is as transparent as one is likely to get. The technology is available to push the rate even higher and I am not sure there is any sonic difference between 24/92 and higher but I am willing to remain open ... I don't see what the improvement would be but I remain open. DSD is to me an anomaly and I am certain the reason it was pushed by Sony was the copy protection scheme it allowed them to establish, else I fail to see its merits so ... PCM high-Rez is to me as transparent one can get.
I have never made, ANY comparison, knowledge-removed or otherwise between Master Tape and the equivalent CD or Hi-Rez. I remain open that they could sound different. I however read Fremer account on his comparison between his table and the recording from his table (Rockport) on a digital gear. I remember his conclusions were that blind he would not be able to distinguish between his TT and the digital recording from his TT , the Rockport. I am not sure the recoding was Hi-Rez. Coming from such a staunch analog audiophile, I am forced to think that they were indistinguishable... So 24/92 is where I think there is no audible difference .. it could be even lower ...
sorry for the long post ...