09-Jul-2021, 12:39
I had a listen to parts of that album - that's another composer on my "to explore further" list 
Putting aside the music for a moment (oh the curse of audiophilia!) and considering only the recorded sound; with the instrumentation - choral, orchestra, I found the differences much more subtle than, for example, with the closely-miked cymbals mentioned previously.
That said, the sharp consonant annunciations at the beginning of "When David Heard" are more "natural sounding" to my ears at least. Does the difference have any musical meaning? Probably not. This fits the pattern of everything I've experienced with hi-res. The differences can be very subtle, but, whatever the size of the difference, the hi-res is always the better of the two.
OTOH, "Equus" has quite a bit of high-pitched percussion, yet in that case I find I can't detect any difference. There's a lot going on in the orchestration there!
Same source track (Qobuz, 96x24), downsampled - or not - in BubbleUPnP server before reaching the D-Prem. Levels are the same compared this way.
Your methodology seems very sound and I can appreciate why it led to the conclusion it did. My early conclusion was the same, but I subsequently changed my mind after being surprised by that floyd album.
Putting aside the music for a moment (oh the curse of audiophilia!) and considering only the recorded sound; with the instrumentation - choral, orchestra, I found the differences much more subtle than, for example, with the closely-miked cymbals mentioned previously.
That said, the sharp consonant annunciations at the beginning of "When David Heard" are more "natural sounding" to my ears at least. Does the difference have any musical meaning? Probably not. This fits the pattern of everything I've experienced with hi-res. The differences can be very subtle, but, whatever the size of the difference, the hi-res is always the better of the two.
OTOH, "Equus" has quite a bit of high-pitched percussion, yet in that case I find I can't detect any difference. There's a lot going on in the orchestration there!
Same source track (Qobuz, 96x24), downsampled - or not - in BubbleUPnP server before reaching the D-Prem. Levels are the same compared this way.
Your methodology seems very sound and I can appreciate why it led to the conclusion it did. My early conclusion was the same, but I subsequently changed my mind after being surprised by that floyd album.
1000 Pro / Magico A5 / REL Studio III
