[RKDinOKC]

Don't think I can hear the difference between consumer and audiophile stuff like I used too.

Gave up on "Hifi" when I discovered Surround Sound in the 80's. Also at that time the quality of consumer sound improved considerably.

Saw them go from 1 inch reel to reel tape to digital recording for the local philharmonic. It was lower quality, but digital was all that was accepted for reproduction and distribution. I setup the system used to copy 22 years of 1 inch reel to teel tape recordings of the local philharmonic to digital. Digital has a better signal to noise ratio, butt...the biggest difference is the overal volume of a performance. The difference between and single instrument playing pianissimo and a full orchestra playing fortissimo is more than the 100db limit of digital. Digital clips the sound where tape just gets overdriven. They tried to say the difference was stepped waves versus analog waves, but the digital sample rate is so high that anything reproducing the sound can't react fast enough to tell a difference. Of course, you can play a digital file at a low enough bit rate that it sounds terrible as the hardware attempts to fill the gaps between.