To address a few points mentioned above:
- You need a DAC to play digital audio. The headphone output of a computer effectively uses the computer built in DAC but it’s probably a $9.99 chip and circuit and may not handle HD
- A high quality DAC typically connects to a computer via USB or FireWire
- Tnere are portable DACs for iOS devices. I recall a brand called DragonFly that costs like $200 and plugs into an iPad and provides a headphones plug
- The DAC section of Computer Audiophile website has wealth of info on everything DAC related
- There are now HD streaming services and Tidal is indeed one of them. However, this simply means that you don’t have to buy the HD files, but you still need a DAC that can convert the stream to analog, either for headphones or feeding and amp/speakers. The DAC would need to be capable of converting the HD streaming format used, which may not be WAV nor DSD.
- I agree with statement below on 48k limit to signal for 96k sampling rate
Now for the fun part, I listened to the 24/96 version last night and it sounds overall really good. Much heavier than Astonising but the lead guitar tone is still similar, which is great news. I much prefer the drum mix, especially the snare is a bit lower in the mix which makes Mangini sound less like a programmed drum machine. The only thing I want to check is the compression DR because the cymbals sound very compressed and a bit unnatural, which happens with low DR mixes. I even went back and listened to A few songs in the 24/96 versions of TA and ADTOE but the cymbals sound more natural on those. Dunno, maybe it was ear fatigue.