Proven: CD's sound the same as high-rez!

"Incontrovertible double-blind listening tests prove that the original 16-bit/44.1-kHz CD standard yields exactly the same two-channel sound quality as the SACD and DVD-A technologies. In the September 2007 issue of theJournal of the Audio Engineering Society(Volume 55, Number 9), two veteran audio journalists who aren't professional engineers, E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran, present a breakthrough paper that contradicts all previous inputs by the engineering community. They prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, with literally hundreds of double-blind listening tests at matched levels, conducted over a period of more than a year, that the two-channel analog output of a high-end SACD/DVD-A player undergoes no audible change when passed through a 16-bit/44.1-kHz A/D/A processor. That means there's no audible difference between the original CD standard (“Red Book”) and 24-bit/192-kHz PCM or 1-bit/2.8442-MHz DSD." Now how's that for a good morning wake up call? The quote I just printed from The Audio Critic (Peter Aczel) in a 2007 article. One of our Community Forums posters was kind enough to post this for us. So to me this is a perfect case of the wrong conclusion to an interesting test. A test we've been talking about for some time as of late. If you'll recall, I spoke about recording a vinyl LP onto digital and how that process captured and preserved all the vinyl qualities LP's have to offer. In fact, using a 96kHz/24 bit A/D/A (slightly higher than Redbook) one can go between the original analog phono output and the output of the A/D/A with little audible change. You'll also recall that the conclusion drawn from this was not that there's no difference between vinyl and CD, but something altogether different. A point completely missed by the two journalists that performed the test and the Audio Critic who reported it. To conclude that redbook CD sounds the same as High-Rez formats because you've compared the analog output of a High-Rez player vs. a 44.1kHz/16 bit A/D/A output of the same is not only dumb, but it misses a marvelous chance to actually say something of value. It's a shame they spend an entire year proving something we could have told them in a phone conversation.