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I agree. Until about 2005 listening to a CD on my audiophile rig was often painful. Most discs just had an irritating noise that made me want to stop listening. I couldn't tell you what it was but the word people used "fatiguing" was correct. I don't know if I finally lost hearing in the frequency range that contained the fatigue or if they fixed it but for the past 5-10 I find digital music to be pretty enjoyable. Also, many of the super old records that collectors claim were the ultimate (like Mercury Living Presence or RCA Living Stereo) aren't really that great. Records from the late 70s and early 80s were probably the peak. There is a lot of placebo effect in what people like

Ah, the DACs! Yeah, I probably didn't start listening carefully to CDs until the early 90s, so maybe I missed a lot of the bad ones.

When you say non-harmonic distortion, are you talking about clipping? Isn't that directly related to the loudness war?

I remember the first time a CD player came to our area, the stereo store had a big showing. I was wondering why they had picked such a harsh system for the demo, but I found out later it was the CD player itself that didn't sound good.