 Since publishing my first audio myths and dogmas, October 2020, so many other myths and dogmas passed my way, I had to make a part two. So buckle up. Where expertise and experience lack, people want solid facts to base their opinion on. And in many cases that is the right way to go. But sometimes there are insufficient solid facts. That's no problem for the brain since it's an expert in making up facts when they are missing. Facts to make the observations make sense. Ask people that investigate accidents. Regardless of what some say, audio technology is not yet understood to a degree that we can judge equipment simply by measuring. As long as we don't understand exactly how the auditory system works, we will not be able to define what parameters are key to good sound. Lots of progress has been made in this field but only by a small group of audio manufacturers. Still, often in the end stage of designing audio gear, it is the voicing that defines the final sound quality of a product. Voicing, as with musical instruments, is fine-tuning the sound quality by ear. Although I measure all devices I review, I hardly ever publish them for several reasons. The most important one is not to intimidate people with things they might misjudge or might not interpret correctly. I do give a course description of the tag inside a device and that can be judged incorrectly too. And perhaps I shouldn't either, but it's an antidote to those that think they can judge the sound quality of a device by a given component. That also is the reason not to publish the measurements. A certain group of people might take a certain measurement and base their opinion on that. This vision is not debatable on my channel for the simple reason that it will only lead to nasty debate with no winners. If you trust my point of view, you are most welcome to follow the channel and if you don't, please go follow the channel or channels that support your point of view. I am frequently asked if Coburso titles sound better, or the CD. That question is impossible to answer. The recording industry is perhaps in contrast to what you might think, not focused on bringing the best music at the highest quality. Record labels are investors and distributors. They invest in a music product and want the best return on that investment. Their position has weakened over time since making an album in general does not require high investments anymore. And distribution can be done by artists using streaming services plus their own site and webshop. Still, bigger acts can benefit from cooperation with record labels so they still have their place in the industry. More and more a new way of distribution, streaming services take over. According to the IFPI, streaming in 2019 already accounted for 62.1% of the recording industry revenues. So streaming services are very important. To sound as good as possible on each streaming service, radio station, CD and vinyl, all kinds of versions are made from the same master. Through this the mastering engineer tries to work around quirks distribution channels have, like level changes, low bit rate, mp3 encoders, the MQA encoder and so on. Streaming services all have their own demands for music files. The most important is the loudness level and how that is specified. But mastering engineers will also try to optimize the sound, balance and dynamics for each and every medium. Of course for final dynamics has to be reduced, high frequencies have to be limited and so on. FM radio stations use audio processors, each with their own settings, to sound louder overall and the mastering engineer has to make sure that for the important channels those settings do not kill the musicality of the album. So in the end there can be tens of distribution versions made from the same master. There is absolutely no guarantee that two streaming services use the same distribution version, therefore comparing a track on those two services is valid for that track only or perhaps for an album. But even another album from the same artist might have been mastered by another mastering engineer. Or even the same mastering engineer one year earlier when he had another vision on how to master for those services. And then we leave differences in mastering gear for what it is. 384 kHz audio files sound clearly better than normal CD. An often heard comment and understandably so. Download high-res test files from 2L.no, they are free, and compare the different sampling rates. You can even compare PCM vs DSD. The outcome will be a great help for you when choosing new music sources. Until you buy a new streamer or DAC, then things might be less clear or even totally different. Theoretically 44.1 kHz sampling should be enough for audio. There are hardly any microphones that go beyond 20 kHz and for a good reason. There is a relation between the size of the microphone membrane, the noise level and the highest frequency it can handle. The smaller the microphone, the higher the top frequency but also the higher the self-noise of the capsule and vice versa. So it seems pointless to use a higher sampling rate than 44.1 kHz since that, at least in theory, can sample audio up to 22.05 kHz. As I have explained before in Q&A is of sampling better, the problems arise on playback where a very steep filter has to be used to limit the output to 22.05 kHz too. In practice 20 kHz is used by the way. Using a higher sampling frequency makes it easier for that so-called reconstruction filter. Again watch the video I just mentioned. Since these reconstruction filters are difficult to make, there are enormous differences between these filters. Each brand has its own philosophy ranging from how can we do it as cheap as possible to cost no object and from oversampling using low-bit pulse width modulation converters to non-oversampling R2R ladder converters. And anything in between. So when you are sure the tracks you use to test different sampling frequencies have exactly the same origin, like with the 2L samples, you can perfectly determine what sounds best. But that will be typical for your equipment, especially the digital to analog converter, whether that is a standalone or integrated in your network player or amp. The same goes for PCM vs DSD. In general PCM might sound better on ladder converters, while DSD might sound best on low PWM converters. Most acts use the latter by the way and there is another general trend. The better and thus the more expensive the equipment, the smaller the differences between low and high-bit rates and between PCM and DSD. It's one of the reasons why I am hardly present at forums where these topics are discussed and nuance is an unknown quality. I like MQA as you might know from my videos. But again nuance is of the essence. The first fold is an efficient way of sending higher sampling rates and thus putting less stress on the reconstruction filter. The deep blurring of the original master might also be great in most cases. The MQA rendering is a good way of compensating for the simple filtering in DAC chips. Since most people will use gear with that kind of DAC, I love MQA. But in high end devices like the Mola Mola Tambaki DAC I reviewed a few weeks ago and the Aurelix Series G2.1 upsampler that I reviewed last February, do the filtering that well you don't need the rendering function of MQA. But that's my opinion. If you hear differently, please be my guest. CD versus streaming. Hear to all kinds of opinions. Who said that when you place two audiophiles in a room you get three opinions? With what I told you up till now, you can already debunk any opinion on this subject yourself. Since you don't know what distribution copy is used, you don't know what you are judging. But let's, for the sake of argument, assume the same master is available on Cobus and Tidal and let's use non MQA 44.1 kHz tracks against CD. Francing hardware then is the most likely cause of differences, if there are any. Against popular belief, the CD player is far from ideal as digital source. The laser has to read a few microns wide track of a few micron sized spots at a speed of 5 km an hour, about 3 miles an hour. And when a reading error occurs, it's not possible to read that info again. The player has to rely on error correction schemes in those cases. If that is insufficient, the player has to be creative and make up the missing data. Computer technology reads data in blocks so fast that on errors the same data block can be read again and again. This has to do with how computers store data. Where the CD has one single track from the beginning to the end, just like a final record, computers divide the disk space in blocks that can be reread. This is the difference between audio CD and CD ROM. The advantage of the CD player is that the CD reader is in the same box as the DAC. So when the reading is errorless, the data will be sent over very short I2S tracks on the circuit board to the DAC. When a separate DAC is used, the connection between the CD DAC and the DAC might cause problems. But using streaming is not bump proof either. Although the reading from a computer drive is clearly more robust, as is the network protocol, it is not as refined and will carry phase noise to some degree. No problem as long as the signal remains in the digital domain but a serious problem during the digital to analog conversion. Very important therefore is the quality of your equipment. In my setup one I use the Auralic Aries G2 network player that mainly converts the network signal to either AES3 or USB Audio Class 2. I use this rather costly piece of equipment since it leads to a clearly better sound quality. Often people think that they can use any streamer for bits are bits. Then the CD player will certainly win hands down. The reverse is true too. When comparing a cheap CD player to a costly network player, it will result in a win for the latter. A short note on AES3. You probably are familiar with Toslink, the optical digital connection, SPDIF, the digital connection on RCA's and AES-EBU, the balanced digital connection on XLR connectors. When we look at the data stream, Toslink and SPDIF are 100% identical. For Toslink the SPDIF signal is converted by a voltage to light converter and transported through Toslink connectors over plastic fiber, indeed not glass fiber. The advantage of Toslink is that it offers galvanic separation, meaning that noise on the ground plane of the sending device cannot get to the receiving device. But phase distortion can get worse as a result of the electrical to optical conversion and back. So again the difference in audio quality depends largely although not entirely on the equipment used. AES-EBU uses exactly the same digital audio data the other two do, but there are small differences in the signaling that surrounds the audio data. This mainly has to do with copy protection. AES-EBU is designed for the professional workflow like recording studios and broadcast stations. There copy protection was unwanted. Nowadays copy protection is no longer an issue. The other difference between AES-EBU and SPDIF is the electrical properties of the connection. AES-EBU uses a balanced connection at 110 ohms at 2 to 7 volts while SPDIF uses an asymmetrical connection at 75 ohms and 0.5 to 1 volts. AES-EBU, SPDIF and Toslink all fall in the AES-3 specification as described in the IEC 61937 specifications. With all these comparisons we should not forget one important variable, the person that does the test. As I have described in what audiophiles want, each and every person will have his own history of listening and consequently might focus on its own favorite parameters. And there might be physical differences too. Apart from having a well developed auditory system you also need good functioning ears. I therefore advise against a quest for the best gear but rather seek for music enjoyment. Sound quality can play a big part in that, it does for me. But try to accept your financial limitations and don't put down gear that you can't afford, something I also see frequently in forums. When selected and combined well, expensive equipment will sound better, whether you can afford it is another matter. Like whether you are capable of hearing these quality differences. My eyesight is hindered by a lower sensitivity for the colors red and green. I also have to be careful at crossings for I might miss a red light. Green light is brighter and easier to see. But I still can enjoy my Panasonic Plasma TV and I do see the difference between the video camera I used a few years ago and the one I use now. But I do need people to help me set up colors for my perception of colors is off. Something similar can be the case with people's hearing. Embrace it, love your limits and they become friends. Which brings us to the end of this show. But no, there will be a new video next Friday at 5pm CET. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumbs up or place a link to it in the social media. It is much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.