There are two interesting things to draw from this (beyond the peculiarity of niche groups).

1) It’s oddly pleasing to see that apart from a very small minority even within ‘hi fi ‘ country, CDs are where it’s at in terms of sound quality (who knew that my battered Bangles CD was still at the cutting edge?). Of course, debates around quality of mastering are lively, but both SCAD and vinyl are pretty much off off the radar.

2) If you want to explore the limits of an audio experience, a set of headphones and an Amp, get you there in a massively more affordable way than looking at speakers, perhaps 50 times as cheaply if you use a digital source rather than a CD drive as the input for headphones. It’s also refreshing to read in even the notoriously pedantic forums that any reasonable USB cable will do to connect your system – no exotic ‘mono-filament, low oxygen’ mumbo jumbo here!

As a result, I’ve taken the leap into a world of audio that’s pretty startling in terms of clarity, of just hearing more detail and nuances in the sound. This is with my Denon AHD-7000s, still breaking in and using the not bad/great Apple Powerbook as a source. The next step is a good headphone amp with the ability to handle digital audio. Then I’ll really be in audio heaven, and even my Bangles will sound good.

If you are interested in really good quality audio you get aview of an exotic landscape where you can pay over £100 for 1 metre of cable (converters extra), or £60k for a CD player. Like physics at this stratospheric end of things verification becomes difficult and we go into the realms of philosophy (do you want your music warm or mellow?)There are two interesting things to draw from this (beyondthe peculiarity of niche groups).1) It’s oddly pleasing to see that apart from a very smallniche even within ‘hi fi ‘ country, CDs are where it’s at in terms of sound quality (who knew that my battered Bangles CD was still at the cutting edge). Of course, debates around quality of mastering are lively, but both SCAD andvinyl are really off the radar.2) If you want to explore choice to the limits of an audioexperience, a set of headphones and an Amp, get you there. Massively more affordable (perhaps 80 times as cheaply if you use a digital source rather than a CD drive as the input for headphones. It’s also refreshing to read in evenniche, highly pedantic forums that any reasonable USB cable will do to connect your system – no exotic ‘high-carbon, mono-filament, low oxygen mumbo jumbohere!As a result, I’ve taken the leap into a world of audiothat’s pretty startling in terms of clarity, of just hearing more detail and nuances in the sound. This is with my Denon AHD-7000s, still breaking in andusing the not bad/great Powerbook as a source.The next step is a good headphone amp, with the ability to handledigital audio. Then I’ll really be in audio heaven, and even my Bangles will sound good.