Of course, there’s a very real (indeed, inescapable) flaw running through the whole high-res file replay argument. When it comes to replaying CD or SACD, we are benefitting from decades of dedicated development focussed on those media and the replay chain that serves them. These are mature technologies. In stark contrast, file replay is in its infancy. Unless you believe that CD and SACD sound no better now than the day they were launched, it’s a gigantic leap of faith to assume that the replay chain for locally stored files (a replay chain based entirely on re-purposed computer hardware) has materialised, fully formed and is already operating at peak audio performance. But then, I’d wager that a Venn diagram of those who deny the performance benefits of upgrading digital cables and those who blindly promote high-res file replay would barely deviate from a perfect circle. Which helps explain not only why this whole debate has re-emerged, but also why the dividing lines are so sharply defined and so vociferously defended.
Scoring points…
So – once again we find people asking, “Do you listen to sound or do you listen to music?” The very question is laden with judgement – and not in a good way. There’s a deeply ingrained prejudice against sound for sound’s sake and suspicion of those that express any interest in sound as opposed to music. Yet who are we, any of us, to judge? It’s fair to assume that anybody with a significant investment in audio equipment has a more than passing interest in sound. For many audio reviewers, sound is at the very centre of everything they do and everything they write. Indeed, it’s much easier to describe sonic differences than define or ascribe musical value to them. Those differences have been promoted by reviews and reviewers and consumed by those who read them. Sound (or perhaps to be more accurate, sonic distinction) has become the invisible sub-text that underpins the entire audiophile community and audio industry.
In practice, most of us exist on a continuum, running from musical interest at one end to sonic performance at the other. What the ‘high-res’ debate, in all its forms, is starting to do is push people towards one end of that continuum or the other. Which is when lines start getting drawn in the sand.
For me, this isn’t and shouldn’t be a debate. Where are the native high-res recordings of great performers from the past? Are we simply going to consign everybody from Heifetz to Piatigorsky, Janis Joplin to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Nirvana, Billie to Ella or Duke, to the dustbin of history? Of course not. Rather than saying, “You should be listening to native high-res files” it would be more accurate to say that it is only native high-res files that can show what’s possible from the approach. At the moment, they represent potential, although both the musical access they provide (to artists) and the state of the replay chain have a long way to go before they can offer a general challenge to the musical integrity of physical media. They are not and cannot be a solution – at least, not one that embraces the past – unless or until we can overcome the issues that afflict non-native high-res files.
