A quest for answers often has us searching in the wrong place. Like trying to figure out how identical groups of digital audio bits can sound different. No matter how close we look they will always be identical if we look no further than the data themselves.
But, we're looking in the wrong place. It isn't the veracity of the bits in question, but their timing or levels of noise that makes them sound different.
I am reminded that it's easy enough to be fooled. Driving a new car I thought perhaps I had a bad tire. Every time I changed lanes on the highway the steering wheel vibrated like crazy. I pulled over and found nothing wrong with the tire. Odd. It took me several stops and inspections before I realized I was looking in the wrong place. It wasn't the tire at all. It was a new-fangled feature called "lane assist" that activated whenever I changed lanes without using the turn signal.
As soon as we're convinced something's wrong, or right, or different, we should pause before making uninformed declarations as to the cause.
Because sometimes we're looking in the wrong place.
