High Definition Audio is misunderstood!

[jsteinhauer]

Hey, I want to talk about something different.

The news has been great, and the CES announcements have too, but it's dizzying.

Every so often, I get lucky and the topic of discussion with my colleagues in the lunch room drifts to home high-definition media. I get continual arguments from the know-it-all types that once we reach a certain age (to be debated, and depending on how you play your headphones and car stereo) we no longer have the anatomic ability to appreciate high-definition sound. Given the nature of these guys, they are difficult to argue with, but it is hard to get past them that what HD audio provides is not an extreme range of frequencies, but a level of detail, background sounds, conversations and surround effects, that is not possible with lossy audio. Analogies would be an abridged book and an unabridged book.

Do you find this same type of misunderstanding when trying to explain that there really is a detectable difference between compressed audio and lossless audio for home cinema?