What I didn't think was possible(I kept quiet, and was happily listening to[my much improved]analog.)has happened! I will have to verify this in my own system, and it is a prototype. I heard Ori's(Oritek Audio) battery-powered(and not just any battery)Pre/Dac. In fact, I was just discussing if digital was ever going to become music with him, when he used this. The main thing was that you could listen into(and all the way back)the music. The music was whole(like analog)-and not just individual sounds. I could actually live with this! Digital usually makes me tense(and that is my main objection to it). This Pre/Dac wasn't. We switched to analog(upon Ori's insistence), and this was the main difference: Analog was cloudier. Analog's voices maybe were a little more realistic. Separation was interesting. I would say that digital still slightly draws the music to the new sound a little unnaturally(I think this could be taken into account somehow in the recording process). I'm not sure if analog's separation was quite right, either. Analog was slightly(and I mean slightly)more relaxing. Anyway, bottom line, I think an analog-lover could live with this. Nothing I've heard(and I haven't heard everythig, but everyone "oohs" and "ahhs" over slight differences in digital, while it retains the same unlistenable characteristic)to date has made digital into music-until now. To give you an idea, I have heard the Berkeley DAC(modified). While it is closer to analog in sound, it does not cross the threshold into music(for me). I was a little sceptical when Ori asked me to hear his battery powered Pre/Dac, but I should have known better(the preamp section of his pre/dac is world class, his modified Stereo 70 is a poor man's Lamm). I just had no hope for digital as music until now.
