"Whilst the rest of the audiophile world continues its delusional and ultimately doomed love affair with the currently fashionable crop of what are claimed to be 'high resolution' computer sources, we at Audio Note (UK ) continue to extract even greater degrees of information and quality from Red Book CD, which is still the best, currently available digital music format." If nothing else, I find the statement interesting and somewhat refreshing. What do you think? Agree? Disagree? No criticism of run-on sentences please. Yup it's a whopper.
I have no problem with their gear, great stuff. It's the stance taken in the statement that tweaks my curiosity. BTW: Please don't take my post as an attack on Audio Note (UK).
Well, it's an eye-roller statement if you don't like their sound or have not heard it directly compared to computer-based audio. The theory says they are wrong and that computer audio is superior - but practice is another matter and there are things like power supplies and output stages that tend to be factors. It's the same with vinyl - on another forum, a fellow said vinyl sucks because the noise level is too high on classical or inner groove distortion etc. But I get none of that on my turntable (unless of course, the vinyl record itself is abysmal). Ao it sort of matters what you compare to what. Peter Qvortrup believes his CD players, transports and DACS sound far better than the competition's computer audio playback (or their CD players). I was listening to their CD 4.1x one-box player and I was thinking what I could sell to get one - it's very expensive - like $13,000 for a bloody CD player (and you can't use it as a DAC). They sell these things because people value CD reproduction or when they audition this player they will value CD reproduction. A lot of people got rid of their vinyl collections - then after a while went "oops that was a mistake" and then went back and rebought their vinyl collections. CD is going through this a little bit WHEN people audition a truly staggeringly good CD player like the 4.1x. Run-of-the-mill CD players are all "meh" and the convenience of downloads is too difficult to pass up - i have thousands of tracks on hard drives. The problem is that to get CD to sound truly amazing requires something like the 4.1x and it is a LOT of money. At relatively normal prices CD players aren't really super special. Although I will say that the entry-level Audio Note 0.1x DAC that I own (which has USB input from a computer) is really quite good. My old audio dealer in Canada put one of them in every system in the store to improve CD and digital. I like it because it's affordable and it doesn't get in the way so I have more money to put to vinyl replay.
I totally agree with that statement as far as CD/Red book is concerned AND I firmly believe that you can realize that with carefully selected gear from other manufacturers as well. I stream music via Qobuz when auditioning music to buy but when it comes to the full on listening experience my personal choice is always a ripped CD.
I’m a confirmed file based music fan these days, so don’t really agree with the AN statement. Having said that, I’d love to hear one of their systems and have a certain grudging admiration for their very clear approach to audio. It’s entirely possible I’d hear one of their systems, fall down the AN rabbit hole and become a lifelong customer.
Simply marketing. Blah, Blah, Blah. Sounds similar to Jay's Audio: JAY'S AUDIO, founded by Jay Ho, focused on designing and manufacturing Redbook CD transport, CD Player using the Philips CDPRO2 LF, and CDM4 mechanisms for nearly two decades. Today, despite the advancement, and evolution of the computer music playback, the convenience of music streaming via PC/streamer, Jacky still believe in the standalone digital CD transports are the best way to reproduce music. Redbook CD at 16bit, 44.1kHz is all one needs.
They have something to sell, and they want to make you feel special for buying what they're selling and not turning away from what they sell towards other kinds of products and, apparently, bad for your dirty little flirtation with high res files or streaming. But, guess what, you can get as good or better sound from those sources as you can from CD, which is not "still the best currently available digital music format," although it's fine as are network based sources and local files of lossless 16/44.1 and higher resolution. But it does mean buying things that I presume Audio Note doesn't sell, and maybe product development in areas of expertise (like software and network architecture) that Audio Note doesn't have, though with the market going the way it's going can an Audio Note $6K ethernet switch -- a modified TP Link with the conventional magnetics isolating ethernet replaces with hand wound transformers or whatever -- be far behind? Then the copy will read "We've solve the problems that kept network audio sources from performing their best in ways that only we can...." etc.
I was seriously considering a CD 4.1x but was convinced that the CD 3.1x/II was a better buy. As far as any music reproduction playback above 44.1 kHz goes, the range of human hearing is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Studies have shown most people over the age of 30 cannot hear anything above 17 kHz and this reduces further as we get older. The Audible Spectrum - Neuroscience - NCBI Bookshelf Hearing range - Wikipedia So, as @_Patrick_ says: 16bit, 44.1kHz is all one really needs.
I can't really argue with chervokas as he makes good points. But for those of us who have chosen to keep our CDs and SACDs (maybe even DVD-As!) it must be said that not all players are born equal. I've had a bunch, including a couple of $10k jobs. Eventually I found what I liked, and I shall not swap it until it fails. Maybe the Audio Note is that good? I don't know and probably can't afford to find out. It might be true, and careful listening at a dealership might help us decide with information, rather than expressing opinions without the necessary experience.
I can't comment on Audio Note's products as I would never be able to afford one, and I think it's slightly ironic that the company saying this makes $10k CD transports whose only function is to extract 1s and 0s and pass it off to a DAC—i.e., their statement says they put great faith in the idea that a certain threshold of data is sufficient for resolving music essentially perfectly, and yet they charge a huge premium to simply extract that data, which suggests there is a lot more to it than the numbers—but I pretty much agree with the general principle, Redbook digital done right is sufficient in 99.5% of cases.
This is peak Qvortrup. He is a consummate contrarian by nature – a man who zags whenever the world zigs. If other manufacturers started focusing on high-end CD transports, that's the point at which Audio Note would release a streamer.
If Audio Note believes a 40-year-old digital ANYTHING is still state of the art I worry for their future and ours. Still running DOS, what? I hate to believe it, but this sounds like a lot of the nostalgic "looking back to the past" daydreaming our industry is selling our older customers. We love hearing the Beatles are still NUMBER ONE. And we apparently believe there was something special about 8-tracks. And record players. And the past actually was more sophisticated and advanced if you consider the Concorde jet plane used to fly to Paris in a couple hours. But old DIGITAL? 40-year-old digital? No. Just no.
While I do like like much of Audio Note's gear, I have to disagree with this statement. About 5 years ago, I took part in a double blind listening test comparing 16/44.1 vs 24/192 vs quad DSD, and I (and most others there) were able to consistently hear the difference between the hi res files and 16/44.1. Most of the difference I heard was in: soundstage size, better defined image within the soundstage, and pretty much anything that has to do with spatial cues. So, the fact that they have some good sounding gear, does not mean they are correct about Red Book being the best digital format.
Just forgetting the contentious issue of CD playback vs computer (I know what sounds better to my ears and people I trust, but let's ignore that) the world's best classical recording engineers use DSD or hi-res PCM and I know these are the most accurate sounding recordings I have compared to what I hear in the concert hall, I attend at least two dozen classical concerts a year. Audio Note UK are going for the euphonic/what sounds pleasing and that's fine too. For me I get maximal emotional involvement in music when it sounds as close to what I hear in concert as possible. For rock/pop music where these recordings are going through amplification/mixing boards/production and are far from the pure sound of instruments I don't necessarily want most accurate, more pleasing can actually be better.
While I’m a die hard CD user I can partly agree with what Simoon is saying regarding soundstage as well as other finer details in higher resolution files. I don’t necessarily get that from material that is simply upsampled though. It’s a different presentation but doesn’t make me want to process everything.
The statement is sheer marketing. I can hear a difference between high resolution and 44kHz 16 Bit. I firmly believe that frequencies welll above the range of human hearing effect what we hear and our enjoyment of music.
I’m no businessman, but when the head of a company makes a statement, I’d think it’s for advertising purposes. I’m pretty sure they don’t make many casual or off the cuff comments to the press.
