...At least for Intel Mac owners anyway.
Having completely sold my soul to Steve Jobs in the last couple of years, I decided to shell out the £25 for an upgrade from Mac OSX Leopard to the new Snow Leopard today - for all the right reasons of course - improvements to the UI, increase in speed etc. and fair play, for £25 it was worth it just for that. It all runs a LOT quicker and just feels a lot more solid.
Reading into the changes however, I discovered something I hadn't realised.. Core Audio has been completely re-written. It seems that although pretty much everything looks the same, all of the changes have been made under the bonnet. So I thought.. As you do... I wonder if that's going to affect sound quality.
My conclusion after 4 hours of enjoying every note played out of my Macbook's optical port is "Yes it has done". With exactly the same setup as on my previous Leopard install - iTunes, Audio MIDI setup on 44.1/16-bit, optical into my Caiman these are my impressions of the changes:
Bass has become more taught, vocals have even more projection into the room. Instrument decay has improved: I loved the way that Joanna Newsom's used harp strings just seemed to hang in the air in front of you, quite breathtaking. When the music gets complicated and there's layers and layers of instruments, it's just more composed and never becomes mushy. It's more solid all round.
Something else I picked up on which was a surprise was the improvement in pace, phrasing and pitch. I became more aware of even the slightest deviations in pitch on a sustained note. There's also more absolute minute detail. You could probably hear a pin drop in an auditorium now.
I'd be really interested to know if anyone else has tried Snow Leopard and experienced improvements, or is it all just down to the fact that it's a clean install? I don't THINK it is as the old Leopard install wasn't that old and wasn't exactly clogged up with apps, but it would be good to get a second opinion.
Also, if you're pondering over Snow Leopard - just get it. For £25 it's a steal, and probably one of the cheapest hi-fi upgrades you'll get.