When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Tvad, Shadorne, Albertporter, you guys have made my arguments much clearer than I did, and I appreciate it. Once again, I am glad that I decided to become a professional musician instead of writer. You guys both make great points, Newbee as well.

Oh, and by the way, Kijanki, just to clarify, I am not the sort of "music teacher" you so disparage. I play full time in a major professional orchestra, and am blessed to play almost every day in one of the great concert halls this country has to offer. I do teach on the side, both privately and at a major university. I have also been interested in high end audio ever since my college days, and know a little about recording, though more from the acoustical rather than technical standpoint.

Speaking of ears again, Mapman brings up an interesting point about the human ear hearing above 20000Hz. Recent research has actually proven that the brain IS sensitive to these extremely high frequencies, it just doesn't process them the same way, so we don't "hear" the actual pitch of those tones. One of the very biggest differences between digital and analog, and why digital sounds like it has something missing to many of us, is that digital processing deliberately cuts out these supposedly inaudible frequencies. Engineers have claimed so far that we won't miss what we can't hear, but it has finally been proven that this is simply not the case - the human ear is most definitely more sensitive to sound than any machine yet invented. So I continue to urge everyone to use their ears and not rely on some engineer's specs - the better your ears become, the more enjoyment you will receive from your music, no matter what type it is, or what form it shows up in, or what type of equipment you are using.

Maybe lack of better digital media is related to quite large number of audiophiles claiming that they will never buy digital or the greed of the companies selling SACDs for over $30 or the lack of the will from government to push for the standard. (We have in US many different cellular companies and two different non-compatible standards while whole Europe has one unified standard/billing and much better coverage).

I agree with your comments, except I wouldn't object to $30.00 or even $50.00 for a perfect digital copy of the master file.

Perhaps that's the amount of money required to make it worthwhile for the music people. I'm already paying that much for the new Music Matters Blue Note LP's, so why not new artists as super digital files?

I've bought a few SACD's and contrary to many, my experience is quality is all over the place. Some are better than CD and some are worse, not much confidence instilled for the extra money they cost. I had hope for the format until I realized it was just another "huge-tiny, digital step."

I refer to it as the "huge-tiny, digital step," because of all the fanfare around each new software and equipment introduction, generally a minor improvement if any. Much like some of the overpriced audio gadgets that we spring for in other places in our systems.

I don't object paying for tweaks that work, I have stuff in my system (footers for instance) that cost $10.00 and I believe they are better than those that cost ten or twenty time more.

Then again, I have a phono cartridge (Air Tight PC-1) that's retail price was just increased to $6000.00, yet I believe it's worth every penny.

Still, it frustrates me that many of the new artists are CD only when other high quality choices could be available. Sure, many are on LP and that fixes it for those of us that are vinyl fans but what about fixing the problem so we don't need vinyl at all? I would gladly switch and enjoy storing the smaller software and convenience of remote control if they would just get the quality right.

Did they consider they could then get money from ALL of us?

Learsfool - could you clarify how do you know that digital processing cuts frequencies around 20kHz? I run test frequencies at different levels from standard CD and 20kHz is present at about 0dB (in relation to 1kHz level).

Albertporter - you are probably right - I would pay more than $30 if for many recordings but not for some of the popular music - classical and jazz hits last longer. It takes marketing campain and often break-even prices to establish and popularize standard. Do you remember Iomega computer Zip drives? It never became standard because Iomega didn't want to lower media price and sued everybody who made compatible media.

Would recent digital masters in DSD improve SACD? (pretty much the same format). I remember Stereophile's very positive reviews of SACD.

I don't remember claimed equivalent of 2.8MHz bitstream but I thing it was something around 20bit/90kHz (with quantization noise pushed outside of audible range). Wouldn't CODE with 24bit/96kHz be better? Most of people have DVD players and my Benchmark accepts 24bit/192kHz.

Kijanki, as you no doubt are aware, every digital processer is totally different, so it is impossible to generalize about all of the different designs. I see, re-reading my post, that that was not worded very well, and was too broad a generalization. Many designers do in fact cut off many of these supposedly inaudible frequencies, however, considering them extraneous. And even in the very best products, the processing itself has unintended effects that they have yet to figure out. Many believe that it is not ultimately possible to take sound, turn it into ones and zeros, change it back again, and have it come out the same. Without turning this into a very boring technical discussion, two common examples are harmonic overtones being removed, and the disappearance of the sense of the surrounding air. Digital processing, again very generally speaking, tends to take away, or at any rate cloud the differences between the timbres of individual instruments (especially acoustic instruments), and also tends to blur the soundstage, making it harder to determine exactly where the instruments are located in the original space. This accounts for why many people find digital sound sterile or fake. The very best digital is getting better at presenting a three-dimensional space, but it is incredibly difficult for digital to do this, and they are still working on it. Analog does all of these things with ease. And I am a little surprised no one has mentioned the jitter factor, which is a huge degradation in sound quality, and which even the very best products you mentioned with 24 bit/96kHz sampling have failed to eliminate entirely. I think I've said enough on the subject, I hope that was more clear.