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RE: Baloney

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: Baloney posted by Ted Smith on September 14, 2007 at 08:45:36

Baloney. Assuming we can be sure mastering engineers have followed Scarlet Book recommendation -- which is to make the CD layer a straight transcode from the DSD version -- and that's a huge assumption -- you still have two issues: 1) whether your playback chain does anything significantly 'different' to the two formats after D/A and 2) sighted bias.

XRCD etc is a non-argument; they are almost certainly different masterings, with different levels and EQ and whatnot; XRCD vs K2HD probably won't sound the same, and that will be evidenced in a comparison of their waveform stats too. The interesting philosophical point you unwittingly bring up is, 'should all 'best' masterings sound alike'?

As for 'tenuous hypotheses', all *you* are making are the same technically dubious assertions that "SACDs sound better because CDs don't have enough [bits, samples]". The fact is you *haven't* ruled out the other factors in your comparisons --- different mastering, different playback, sighted bias. And I've noticed some mastering 'engineers' don't bother to, either.

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