Having admittedly only skimmed the thread so far, it seems that many people are confusing the term "high definition audio" with "lossless compression". My understanding of HD recordings is that they are delivered at higher bitrates and sampling frequencies than were originally made available through the CD specification of 16bit/44.1Khz - most commonly 24bit/96Khz (although the sampling frequency can vary generally between 88-192Khz depending on the release). I assumed that the original article was referring to HD releases in this sense, not simply providing a lossless ALAC of the original 16/44.1 recordings.
The conversation also seemed to take a detour via discussion of CD vs Vinyl (which always tends to bring out the hardcore "analogue" fans), and I noticed at least a couple of comments regarding how vinyl perfectly captures the analogue waveform as recorded in the studio. Not only is this comment only accurate if the studio in question recorded to an analogue format such as 2" tape, but it would also seem to overlook one of the shortcomings of the vinyl medium, which is the physical problems it has reproducing very low frequencies. Vinyl is not a perfect recreation of the analogue waveform, as during the mastering process the audio needs to be high-pass filtered so that the grooves imprinted in the vinyl do not extend down into those parts of the frequency spectrum that would cause the stylus to physically jump over the surface of the record. In those terms, vinyl is technically just as much of an approximation of the original waveform as CD is, and whichever format you happen to personally prefer simply becomes a matter of taste and preference. Taste and preference are fine, but resorting to fallacious technical comparisons to defend your particular preference strikes me as futile. Also, as with digital formats, the vinyl playback device plays a crucial role in the quality of the output. I've seen too many "vinyl snobs" in my time who write off digital recordings, claiming analogue is king, and when I finally get to see their setups they're using nothing more than a Technics SL1210 turntable with an Ortofon cartridge - precisely the kind of setup that could very easily be bested by a decent digital source.
Finally, for the person who commented that iTunes >> Spotify represented a huge step down in audio quality, do you realise that Spotify is able to stream 320Kbps MP3s? I would hardly describe the difference between 320Kbps MP3 and 256Kbps AAC as"huge".
Personally, I agree with the earlier poster who stated that by far the biggest issue with playback quality these days comes from the mastering process. The "loudness war" that has been raging for the past decade is now probably so deeply entrenched in culture that moving away from this will sound "wrong" to many people, which is a shame, because some otherwise great albums have been destroyed through a combination of record label pressure, heavy handed mastering, and (more recently) artist desire to sound like "other records" (which also sadly suffer from this issue).
When compared to the size and scope of this problem, I personally feel that the vinyl vs digital debate completely pales into insignificance.
