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The Bob Stuart paper that influenced the DVD-Audio standard hit interesting numbers starting from the ear. I don't think Bob left quite enough margin for error in the equipment needing to be significantly better than what you hear to be transparent though, which is how we got from his 20 bit/58KHz suggestion to need 24/192.

The subject of how many bits and what sampling rate is sufficient for playback was beaten to death in 1997. Check out Bob Stuart's article "Coding High Quality Digital Audio", PDF at Meridian white papers.

The issue is not just your hearing. You have to consider how the most common forms of distortion in real-world equipment will mess with things, issues like quantization/dithering deviation from perfection and phase issues interfering with high frequency playback. Attacking those two from a combined theory/measured practice standpoint, Bob's numbers say if you reach a full 20 bits and 58KHz of resolution, that will be effectively perfect even given the typical errors in digital playback. Obviously you have to record at better than that to have some margin for error as sound is processed and mixed, but that's as far as can be easily justified on the home playback side.

Given the current state of the loudness war, this is all kind of moot for newer recordings. But I own about a dozen higher than CD quality releases on DVD, DVD-A, and SACD, all from analog tape transfers, that are so much better than their respective CDs that anyone who listens seriously would never confuse them.

I am an avid home theater fanatic with a massive front projection screen and a high-end audio system to go with it. (Here's a bad picture of the system. For scale, each one of the front black speaker is 6 feet tall.)

For someone with a similar large format setup, this technology is a worthwhile leap in quality because I can see the lack of resolution and compression artifacts inherent in many DVD transfers. Having a large display surface area makes noticing such issues much easier even for novices. However, those people who are content with their Sony and Hitachi consumer level television regardless of the display technology involved (tube, LCD, and Plasma) probably won't see the difference nor will they care.

I'll go through the points quickly...

1. Nobody likes false starts
I agree that the Toshiba HD-DVD player is lacking in terms of usability and quality, but it is a Toshiba and a first generation product so bugs are expected. It would be rather unfair for me to compare to my US$10k+ Meridian 800 series DVD player that has gone through a number of revisions for refinement to a first generation DVD player from many years ago. Even if they were both new and unused, products and implementations improve with time. However, even the Toshiba HD-DVD "budget" player with its superior resolution still makes my combination of Meridian 800 with line quadrupler look soft in comparison.

This technology cannot simply be written off even though I am disappointed 1080p isn't available. For a majority of consumers, the difference between 1080i and 1080p will be even less noticable than the jump from 480i/p to 1080i. Even for an enthusiast this isn't a problem until the new 3-chip DLP solutions capable of playing 1080p are widely available from Marantz and Runco. I also find the lack of HDMI is a blessing in disguise. Sure, we can't run 1080p and multichannel audio over one cable but the amount of copy protection possible on that interface makes me cringe. The fact that movie houses have a right to protect their content isn't in dispute, but the very notion that with the flip of a switch any component can be rendered useless through key revocation makes purchasing expensive and esoteric a much larger risk than it should be. If nothing else, I expect the esoteric ultra-high end companies will produce (and they have in the past) a better interconnect format but that won't make a difference with Joe Public.

2. Format Wars Don't Sell Players
Agreed. This curse hit SACD and DVD-Audio as few years ago. The initial bickering and lack of material made buying into either format a liability. Furthermore, there were artists on both formats that I liked which weren't available universally across formats so I bought machines that played each format. Other technical problems such as no individual channel volume and delay adjustments and the lack of a single digital output made hooking up the player difficult for consumers. Meridian and others made a proprietary single interconnect but this wasn't available in any budget machines.

Arguably, the general public doesn't care about multi-channel audio because CDs are good enough. Besides fanatics such as myself, who here has both an SACD player and a DVD-Audio player? Not many. Penetration of these formats into the market has been very slow and nearly non-existant. Interestingly my car has a DVD-Audio system from the factory but the manufacturer probably did research and realized that their target demographic probably has the disposable income to play with such formats.

3. HD DVD and Blu-ray are NOT Quantum Leaps in Technology
From the article: "Consumers, most of whom rarely know how to properly configure their players or home theater systems, are perfectly content with their current DVD players..." (emphasis mine). The general public doesn't care. Many times I see my friend's te

Sending music over data lines to self-powered speakers isn't new. Meridian has been doing it for at least 10 years. They don't use TCP/IP, but it's the same idea.

High end audiophiles will squak. Meridian's G98 costs $6k (review), the Lexicon RT20 is $5k, an Ayre costs $6k, and the Arcam FMJ 29 (highly rated starting end of high end) will set you back $3k. The top reference player, Meridan 808, will set you back $20k.

The Denon 2910 (about $600) (review) is the beginning of better quality players. The article being discussed does exactly what a lot of the higher end players do -- swap out cheap parts for better ones. For those who don't think it makes a difference, you've never had the pleasure of good quality sound. A wide, three dimensional sound stage with clear separation of instruments and fine detail puts a smile on your face. Being able to get that for much less than above (and have the second pleasure of do it yourself) is well worth it.

Actually, full digital domain stereo and surround has existed for a while and Meridian is the company that's been doing it.

According to Acoustic Rnaissance for Audio the bitstream encoding used on SACDs is not better then PCM with a comparatively high sample rate and sample size. Both encodeing techniques have their advantages. According to the linked paper, for the purposes of digital audio storage and playback, PCM is better. Although the paper does not delve deeply into the advantages of bitstream encoding, the paper does say that bitstream is better when there is a direct connection between the ADC and DAC.

One too many /'s
Here is the correct link.

Um... you must not have gone to very good stores. Serial ports are quite prevalent on high-end equipment, and are often on mid-range as well. They allow for software upgrades to the components when new features come out, which can enable people to add something like DTS to their previously Dolby Digital-only setup.

Also, remotes using RF that can go through walls, touch-screen programmable controls, etc are around and common on the more expensive stuff. Some manufacturers allow for upgrading of your pre-amp with add-in boards for the modularity you were looking for.

Maybe you were just shopping at your local chain retail stores?

Check these links out:
Meridian

They are offering a free upgrade to Dolby Pro Logic II, THX EX, etc. right on the front page.

Right here is the info on upgrading through your computer and the RS-232 port on the Pre-amp.

Plenty of other manufacturer's have similar products.

Um... you must not have gone to very good stores. Serial ports are quite prevalent on high-end equipment, and are often on mid-range as well. They allow for software upgrades to the components when new features come out, which can enable people to add something like DTS to their previously Dolby Digital-only setup.

Also, remotes using RF that can go through walls, touch-screen programmable controls, etc are around and common on the more expensive stuff. Some manufacturers allow for upgrading of your pre-amp with add-in boards for the modularity you were looking for.

Maybe you were just shopping at your local chain retail stores?

Check these links out:
Meridian

They are offering a free upgrade to Dolby Pro Logic II, THX EX, etc. right on the front page.

Right here is the info on upgrading through your computer and the RS-232 port on the Pre-amp.

Plenty of other manufacturer's have similar products.

... when you can get the B&O BeoSound Century, which is far nicer? Of course, if you want a good stereo, rather than an aethetically pleasing one, you wouldn't get one that was wall-mounted (perhaps one from these people?), but B&O's products are quite good in terms of audio quality, given their form factor.