I am venturing into high end audio for the first time ever and my assumptions about digital audio are being challenged with each listening experience. The sales sharks are no help since I get different answers depending on which product line the shop is pushing. I've looked all over the web, but still have not found one decent explanation.
If a CD player's laser tracks well enough to read each and every bit of binary data from the disc and one is using optical digital output, why in the &^%! does it make any difference whatsoever what DAC or other circuitry (beyond the essentials like electrical isolation and directness of signal path for noise reduction) is in that player?? Isn't the path from laser to optical output to pre-amp input essentially a passthrough?
Certainly, an accurate source is needed for faithful reproduction, but there are 1's and 0's on that spinning disc and they are *all* set there at the same standard CD Audio specified standard of 44.1 KHz. There is no encoding of *anything* above the Nyquist frequency (not including other formats like DVD-A or SACD) on that disc - nothing. This isn't a vibrating phonograph needle with nuances in every wiggle of that scratch in the vinyl - the data is either there or it isn't.
What technical details am I missing in my blind ignorance that explains the existence of players costing 4, 8, 12 (and more) thousands of dollars? There was a post by John A. in Receivers that basically blew off the notion that it makes any difference whatsoever in two-channel sound. The sharks and my ears tell me otherwise.
Any help (I can handle the technical details - I'm ignorant, but willing and able to learn) would be *gratefully* appreciated. Thank you so very much.