44.1kHz/ 16-bit - outdated ???

CD Audio is always 44.1KHz/16 bit, which will never change because CD is a very defined format with very clear specs. However the CDs were remastered, they are always pressed in 44.1/16. Marillion's were remastered in 24 bit, too, but that only refers to the process before it gets onto CD.

The sounds during recording aren't affected by this though - you can record with as high a frequency/as great a bit depth as you like, and then have to downsample to the CD specs. If it's done properly (as with the Marillion reissues), 24 bit resampled to 8 bit will sound better than straight 8 bit recordings.

DVD-A can have a selection of both sample rates and bit depths, I think up to 96Khz and I'm unclear on the bit depth (48, maybe?). That may or may not be expanded later on - I doubt it because once you get that high any increase takes an absurd amount of data for no real difference.

Spectralaudio.com:

"Higher sampling rates are primarily accountable. They allow much less energy storage and settling residue from the decimation filtering needed to prevent unpleasant alias distortion. The resulting sonic smoothness and subliminal involvement experiences become the primary advantages over carefully crafted HDCD reproduction. DVD improvements will be subtle because Red Book limitations posed on CDs have already been addressed by the filter swapping and bit extension techniques of the HDCD processes. These techniques work, as even commodity players can reproduce timbre accuracy, staging and inner resolution. Clearly, conventionally encoded recordings from good analog sources will probably benefit more with faster sampling and more bits. But there are limits! Unless DVD audio conversion is done well, carefully crafted HDCD reproduction will still have better sonics."

"In the evolution of consumer audio formats, history usually repeats itself. One only need recall the rush to proclaim the early first-effort CD recordings and players as "perfect" to understand how a new technology is used to drive mass-market sales. The extreme eagerness on the part of the press to review new format recordings and components as "superior" also plays into this scenario.

Predictably, the rush to be first with a new 24/96 format consumer product will also affect high-end companies resulting in early DVD and theatre oriented machines which, while improved over mass-market products, will not reflect state-of-the-art refinements. Uncompromising performance will not be achieved in early 24/96 digital components, but will remain to be explored in the most ambitious later designs. Invariably, this level of care and thoroughness takes time and is pursued only by the most dedicated audio manufacturers.
"

High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) is a family of sophisticated technologies that improve the quality of all forms of digital audio recording and playback- including Compact Disc and DVD-Audio-by increasing resolution and reducing distortion that occurs during analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to-analog (D/A) conversion, digital processing and digital filtering. Following are the primary benefits of HDCD technology:


HDCD-encoded recordings sound better on all digital player products because HDCD subtractive dither A/D conversion and dynamic-filter processes yield a higher resolution, lower distortion, signal. For HDCD Compact Disc releases, Peak Extend restorable soft limiting can increase resolution by allowing signal levels to be raised by up to 6 dB, Low Level Extend can improve resolution of low- level signals, and HDCD high-frequency dither improves resolution by 6 dB (one bit). Learn more.


HDCD-equipped players improve the sound of all digital recordings because HDCD decoding includes the HDCD precision up-sampling digital filter.


When played on a player with HDCD decoding, HDCD Compact Disc recordings have set a new standard for audio fidelity in the home because, on top of delivering all the benefits mentioned above, HDCD decoding restores encoded peaks and low-level information, resulting in a signal with 20 bits of real musical information instead of the 16 bits of all other CDs.
Learn more about how HDCD encoding and decoding processes work.




Here's an affordable musical player with HDCD filter:
It will work better than many bad sacd and other pseudo 24 bits players!

Arcam FMJ CD33 (the biggest Arcam CD player)

oliverstoned wrote: All new technologies need time to mature, like CD.

There's no real difference in the technologies of CD and DVD-A as far as the audio side is concerned. The only differences lie in the actual reading of the data, and since I believe both CD and DVD have a specification that a CD (or DVD) player can't be called a CD (or DVD) player unless it can read a good disc with no errors whatsoever, there shouldn't be any real issues. Apart, that is, from getting to grips with the extra channels when they're being used, both on recordings and on playback. If a stereo DVD-A sounds worse than a CD it should only really be because of bad mastering (which as we can see from old CD masters isn't impossible at all). Also because DVD-A is only likely to sell to people looking for good quality, I imagine a lot more effort will be put into them sounding good than it was for CDs. In five years time, when I have some money , I shan't have any worries about buying a DVD-A player.

The problem is not only in the format capacities, but also in the devices available...

High end cd palyers smoke SACD and DVD a Players

(with exception of the big Teac "Esoteric" SACD/Cd player, but it costs half-price of an house)

Numeric...outdated?