One of the more famous literary motifs is the idea of the Holy Grail, a metaphorical vessel with miraculous powers providing happiness, eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance.
Grails, both holy and hopeful, can apply to any number of aspirational audio goals. For me, that grail is to be found in digital audio.
We've long known that digits are digits and thus can be endlessly replicated without loss. That said, we've also known that digital delivery and processing are prone to differences that are most audible.
The Grail would, for me, be to design a series of digital audio devices that are agnostic to the storage, transmission, and processing of bits. That no matter how one gets those bits delivered and processed, the audible results would be the same.
We are a long way away from drinking from that grail vessel, though with PS Audio's recent innovations of galvanically isolating inputs and CPUs from the digital outputs we're more than one step closer.
Grails, both holy and hopeful are what keep most of us in research and development going.
