It happens that I have a friend who is a Grammy-winning recording engineer, and also a very strong and vocal supporter of DSD, the only type of recordings he makes. His position is that 2x or 4x DSD makes very little difference in playback, though it does make his life easier in the earlier stages of recording production. He uses Merging products for recording, and he has an extraordinary playback monitoring system, which I have heard. But, he is quite comfortable with 1x DSD playback of his and others' recordings down- rezzed from higher DSD sampling rates.
As I have posted before, I have heard limited comparative examples of 1x vs. 2x DSD from the same analog master, also vs. 192k and 352k PCM. I and a friend, who is a noted recording and equipment critic, heard elusive, ever so slight differences not really at all worth going to the mat about. I conclude that like many other things, the ear has its limits. And, personally, we did not hear a difference between DSD and hi Rez PCM worth arguing about. It is minuscule, in my opinion and that of my reviewer friend. Ah, but, I know, I have not heard 4xDSD. It would make all the difference! Yeah, sez you.
Going beyond with ever bigger numbers might make great marketing copy and forum fodder, but significant comparative audibility is just not there. Unless, that is, you wish to direct us to high quality double blind listening studies that vindicate your so enthusiastically zealous, rigidly held views. Until then, I remain unconvinced, based on your boringly repetitive testimony alone, or even of Miska's or legions of HQP adherents, or other 2, 4, 8, 16, 32... X DSD adherents based on pure anecdotal, subjective testimonials under uncontrolled conditions.
I think there are much more significant and useful areas of potential sonic improvement than the playback resolution numbers game. Ever higher Rez cannot hurt, but does it help in any meaningful, audible way toward gaining audio nirvana? There are other factors that matter much more, IMHO.
