The one major area where gear sounds so much better is DACs.
About 20 years ago there was a significant improvement, and Redbook suddenly sounded almost as good as 96/24. Not sure what happened, but it was a real seismic shift upwards in even low cost, USB powered gear. The need to use high resolution formats to get excellent performance almost vanished.
Speakers as well now can be much more neutral and extended in the top octaves with less distortion. Not all, of course, but a lot of brands have gotten truly excellent tweeters, far better than early Be or micro-motor diamond tweeters. Magico, Monitor Audio, Sonus Faber, Legacy, YG and others have pushed this part of the envelope forward a great deal.
About 20 years ago there was a significant improvement, and Redbook suddenly sounded almost as good as 96/24. Not sure what happened, but it was a real seismic shift upwards in even low cost, USB powered gear. The need to use high resolution formats to get excellent performance almost vanished.
Speakers as well now can be much more neutral and extended in the top octaves with less distortion. Not all, of course, but a lot of brands have gotten truly excellent tweeters, far better than early Be or micro-motor diamond tweeters. Magico, Monitor Audio, Sonus Faber, Legacy, YG and others have pushed this part of the envelope forward a great deal.