That's an intriguing article there....
One thing that bugged me though. He ignores high quality digital formats like .wav, .flac, and .ape. With a high quality CD drive and good software you can get a digital file with all the information which was on the CD stored accurately. Also, I think it's fair to say that the current crop of rock and pop music sates my taste for rock and pop. If I, or any other person who professes to love good sound quality, and detailed music just listens to rock and pop...well I don't think the former is a true statement. You don't love great sound quality and detailed music if you just listen to rock and pop, because the fact is that all the well engineered and recorded stuff is on classical and jazz record labels. The "ear candy" is rock and pop for me.
Course a lot of older stuff from the early 90s, 80s, and 70s has that nice fact of having good dynamic range and being ear candy at the same time >_> that would be nice to have with rock and pop of today.
Metal and other genres vary wildly from shite sound to amazing sound I think.