Well, I guess this another case when different ears hear different things.
I downloaded Fidelia and compared it to iTunes playing ALAC, MP3 and AAC.
At first I was shocked at the difference, until I worked out they were playing at different volume levels. Fidelio was consistently higher.
When I level matched them as best I could, I heard no difference at all. Fidelio's ability to play FLAC and high res tracks might be handy. But for pure sound quality there was no difference I could detect. Tracks included jazz, classical and Johnny Cash.
Listening was through my Mac Mini outputting to Linkwitz Orion speakers, and from my Macbook Air to an M-Audio Mobile Pre and Sennheiser HD 600 headphones.
I do think the graph of the track playing is cool though. Assuming it is accurate, it is remarkable how compressed most rock music is. Kind of takes away the point of having good gear.
Mind you, I'm not completely surprised that there is no difference I can hear. iTunes, when run without any volume, EQ, soundcheck etc tweaks is bit perfect to the original source. I have 50 or so DTS music CDs which will only play (via an external decoder) if they are left completely untouched.
Interestingly, Fidelio wouldn't play them, although I have check if it's DSP is off.
