When is digital going to get the soul of music?

I am just getting in to analog, along with digital system I already have. I agree with Plato. If you are lucky enough hit the right combination of components, it is possible to get there.

My digital system, at most times, makes me feel that I got it made. I am trying find faults and kind find any at most times. I have tried much more expensive source, pre-amp, cables- but I keep coming back to my this combo. My recent very good analog system (goose bump amd wow factor inducing) auditions only confirmed that I got it made. My digital (nothing fancy- no upsampling, no multi buck) source is pretty basic and cost under $2000 retail. It somehow works in my set up. And all this in not an optimum room set up. This system sounds almost like analog, with little more detail and presence. No hash. Zero background noise. Very Dynamic. Music emerges from black front or rear of the soundstage.

So it is possible to get soul with digital.

Although I am learning that getting there in analog is much more easier than digital. I would say analog gets you there rather easily. Digital I am finding out is stroke of luck and much more difficult. Buying best source, best preamp, $xxK amp does not gurantee this in digital.

About half a dozen years ago Red Book started to get it with processes like K@20 Bit.Listen to and old Miles davis "Kind Of Blue" from mid 80's and it new speed corrected latetsversion (the fith I believe).Or an old Pretige LP or say Creedance Clearwater Revival that now uses K2 20 bit. Blows away early CD's.Some SACD's may be neck and neck with vinyl as we speak.I still prefer the ritual and sound of LP's (nad maybe becausse like us them seem more mortal) but I uised to crap over digital and it's true everyone with Ipods and MP# has been 'dumbed" dow but I am also after 20 yers of digital excited to se PURELY ON A SOUND BASIS if a $300 CD playyer (or whever format they call it) sounds like a/b'd with $500 or $2K analogue rig.We may be in for a shock.That plus even if it is LP's it will be played through digital amps.Take how a DEQX 2.6 for a rsonmable price and have our jaw drop at what it does to the 50% factor of your room.Someone will have to help you pick your jaw up and jam, your tongue in again even if it's that 1957 deep ghroove ABC/Paramount LP that was the source.
Chazzbo

It does now and might not have heard a well matched digital front end system.

Is not the path to the soul through heart, rather than through the hardware? Seems that'good'equipment (Plato wrote, above: "..use the right gear and set it up properly") - be it tubes or ss, analog or digital - is a vehicle to get you where you want to go. The final common pathway is the individual ear, hear and gear, rather than the a blanket dismissal of one form or sound reproduction. To set up mutually exclusive false dichotomies, engenders ideological conflicts - already rampant - regarding which camp is the keeper of audio truth.

Simply put: there are many roads that lead to mecca, or in this case to conveying "the soul of music"; and each listner will find it as s/he will.

I'm trying to understand how one gets off on digital. Is it the individual sounds sounding so life-like? I have heard some incredible sounding digital. For instance, at the Stereophile hi-end show in San Francisco in 1988(?). They were using Apogee speakers with Krell electronics, and were playing the Bodyguard(not sure of the title) cd by Whitney Houston. The sound absolutely astounded me. I could hear where, in her throat, the sound was coming from. The problem, for me, was that it didn't drive me nuts(like analog lp's) to listen to it again. Why is that?