I recall comparing several units in a listening environment. A Philips deck, plugged into the same amp and speakers, was noticeably better than the competitors

I recall comparing several units in a listening environment. A Philips deck, plugged into the same amp and speakers, was noticeably better than the competitors we were trying. Suddenly, I could hear the scrape of the cellist's bow against the strings at the start and stop of strokes. It wasn't an absurdly high end Philips deck, but it was into the range where they spent to put in good analogue circuitry -- what happens to the signal after the D/A converter gets done with it. The CD format didn't obviate the need to take care of and spend on the rest of the delivery mechanism. And not on the associated marketing hype, but on good and well-matched components. CD's were a revelation -- in the right production hands. But then they became coasters played in $50 boom boxes. And they never outright obviated high quality analogue recordings and playback. They presented an interesting addition and counter-point to audio reproduction. I doubt that scrape survives very well at 192 Kbps.