Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
Like the car industry, the hifi industry always has to keep reinventing wheel in order to sell more. I feel digital audio is a classic example of this where it has moved from a simple DAC in a CD player to stand alone DACs, Hi Rez, DSD,MQA, R2R, Galvanic isolation, better PSU, re clocking etc etc. I am sure much of this technology has benefits in digital audio and has moved the SQ obtained from digital along way from CD? Surely?
No, not really. It's not easy to find a CD player, even one from the 1980s, that has audible issues. It's not hard to buy one off ebay for little money and do this comparison for yourself. Do they all sound the same? No, I don't think so, but a different presentation is not the same thing as different quality of reproduction

Digital audio is mathematics so the parameters are completely defined. Is it possible to do this even better than we have now - to the extent we could hear it? I don't see how that can be possible.

You may be able to find a DAC or CD player that has a lot of noise from the power supply that degrades the sound but that has nothing to do with the DAC itself, or any of the intrinsic technology, it's just poor implementation.