Bosso:

I think the thing that is really wrong in this whole issue is that the 950 is advertised as having "24 bit" performance. Real 24 bit reproduction is _dead silent_: my 24 bit workstation sure is. The 950s noise performance is somewhere around the 13 bit level - I think it's more an issue of the marketing types wirting checks that the engineering department cannot cash.

In my experience, the 'hiss' generated by things like analog tape is smoother sounding than the "grittier' hiss generated in some digital systems. It's quite telling that a very substantial number of original masters still are recorded and mixed to good old analog tape.