Format wars

Paul McGowan writes:

Whatever happened to the format wars? We lost sleep over FLAC vs. ALAC, DSD vs. PCM, MQA in competition with everything else.

Did our playback equipment suddenly get so good that these various formats now perform with varying degrees of excellence rather than acceptability?

I can tell you that playback of 44.1kHz through DirectStream is so close to higher resolution formats that one has to question the need to purchase higher resolution media. But that’s just us in a sea of other DACs.

Have we, as an industry, elevated playback quality to such a degree that the wars are over? Is there a white flag flying that I missed?

It’s hard to know if the most vocal among us got tired of the battle, or found peace in the improved performance.

I do appreciate a lull in the battles.

END

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