Does HiRez really sound better?

Geoffkait, That's interesting because even back in the 70s cassette was known as a lofi medium, only 8 tracks were considered worse. You had to use dolby processing to decrease tape hiss, which also removed a lot of the high frequencies, or one could listen with the tape hiss on self recorded cassettes. Prerecorded cassettes definitely were not considered audiophile grade recordings.

I think some people just like a higher noise floor on their recordings, and I have no problem with that at all.

To answer the original question, Hi rez can sound better than cd but does not always. I think we will see significant improvements in both cd and hi rez sound for years to come.

Geoffkait, Dynamic range is only one factor in sound quality and not all cds are overly dynamically compressed, nor will all cds be overly compressed in the future.

If you listen to grammy type pop music, compression is a problem. However, there are many cds released in more adult oriented genres that are not overly dynamically compressed. I'm surprised you didn't know that. So the problem of dynamic compression is not an issue on many cds and SACDs.

Meanwhile, new cd players are improving many different factors in sound quality rapidly, and we are moving from the era of cd on to hi rez digital, which holds the promise of even greater improvements in sound quality. Not all hi rez files or hi rez players will sound better, many will though.

Rbbert, I agree about wow and flutter. Misaligned tape heads (most weren't adjustable) and particles shedding from the tape gumming up the tape path also contributed to poor sound quality for cassettes.