When is digital going to get the soul of music?

I know we are supposed to have live music as a reference, I think that analog is, at least, a reference for digital. By that, I mean that sometimes we don't realize where digital errors, until we hear some analog. Analog is better than no reference at all. That being said, I've been listening to digital exclusively for awhile while I get my analog going. Alex, of APL, proved to me that digital could be music-which I didn't believe when I started this thread.

I can't stand the hiss and pop of LPs. True great analog may be the one and only original open reel tapes. LP is a CD equivalent to the Master tapes.

With proper DAC, output stage design and implementation, digital will win over LP if you consider ALL aspects of listening music: black background, dynamic range, details, etc. LP may edge out in a few areas, but OVERALL digital will win.

I can't stand the hiss and pop of LPs.

First, the "hiss" is not from LP's but from the original analog master tapes. LP's don't create hiss. Second, this kind of comment about not being able to tolerate the "pop" and noise of LP's is usually stated by people who have little or no experience with high end or state of the art turntables, which are extremely quiet.

With proper DAC, output stage design and implementation, digital will win over LP if you consider ALL aspects of listening music: black background, dynamic range, details, etc. LP may edge out in a few areas, but OVERALL digital will win.

If only this were true I couldn't be happier. LP's are a pain in the a**, but they are so superior sonically that we are forced to deal with it. They don't just edge out digital in a few areas, they are vastly better in nearly every area.

It's both funny and bizzare to those of us who listen to high end examples of both, when people claim that digital is better. It really isn't even close.

Davemitchell is right to my mind and ears: If a LP is properly cleaned and well treated, there will be no clicks and pops on a properly set up TT and quite often, Abe, there is a hell of a lot of hiss on prerecorded open reel tapes. I know, I own and listen to a lot of them. Abe is right about dynamic range of digital, but wrong to my ears about "details" and if you are familiar with live music and take that as reference, "black background" to my ears is completely unnatural ( just as a noisy one of course ). Rather the background in a good concert hall is full of tiny reverberant clues, it "breaths" so to speak and I would expect that as well from a good recording of classical big orchestral music. Even the great Zanden or the DCS gear will not pick that up, a good analog recording of a classical piece will. The proof lies in the listening.
In fact I am wondering, if by the means of clever advertising and constant repetition of it, one of the central failures of digital, the lack of rendering of all the necesary ambient clues in a recording have not been turned into the so called advantage of "black background". There is simply no such thing in a live event as every regular concert goer knows.

On the other hand however, to pay justice to digital, the art of digital recording has tremendously improved in the last 10 to 15 years. Recordings of small combos, indidividual solo instruments and voices seem to my ears mostly better rendered through the digital medium, simply have more presence and imediacy than analog. The harshness which used to plague early digital and made it unlistenable for me is thankfully no more. All the same, I would never give up my analog rig, because with big orchestral music, digital falls sadly short so far, even though well designed USB-DACS like Steve Nugent's "Spoiler with PaceCar" show promise also in this field, in spite of the fact, that here silences are really pitch black (;
Cheers,
D