Some folks think it’s all simply wishful thinking on everybody’s part: The system costs more and has better specs; therefore, we make ourselves believe it sounds better. There’s something to that reasoning. Humans are a notoriously imperfect lot and tend to see and hear what we want to see and hear. Another very plausible reason is something that the authors discovered in their research. Despite the fact that no one could hear the difference in playback systems, they reported that “virtually all of the SACD and DVD-A recordings sounded better than most CDs — sometimes much better.” As it wasn’t the technology itself that was responsible for this, what was? … Continue reading Paul D. Lehrman