When is digital going to get the soul of music?

" I suggest that everyone keep an open mind on digital and get ready for high-res digital downloads"

Hard to do when someone is convinced the medium is inherently flawed, which it isn't......

Personally, I'm ready to move forward and lay my fond memories of analog systems of the past to rest. In this case, truly the best is yet to come.

I just need a nice sized flat panel monitor so I can easily read about what I'm listening too, just like in the good old days of 33 1/3 lps. Only now, I will learn more as well because I am not limited to the space available with album packaging for content (let's not even talk about CD packaging though, the small size and packaging truly is the pits from a graphics design perspective).

Learsfool - Perhaps it was asked before, but don't they press some (or most) of the new LPs from digital master tapes? You said that "digital will never rival analog" - digital already won, seems to me.

Fear not... till Burnham Wood doth come to Dunsinane...

More seriously...if this thread keeps going...how long will it be before the complete works of Shaespeare are typed?

Shadorne - I recommend American Players Theatre in Spring Green Wisconsin. They play from original text on the hill in the forest (not Burnham Woods though but close).

My friend works for large recording studio. All analog (Apex) recorders were removed. He remembers good all times when they had to rewind (thousands of) tapes constantly (Few times a year each tape) otherwise it was copying itself from turn to turn (layer to layer) - I remember hearing this effect on some older LPs (in silence after loud passage). It was more of the ghost than soul of music.

Kijanki, if you are speaking of new recordings, just about all are digitally recorded in the first place. Almost no one does analog recording anymore - digital is so much cheaper, is far easier to edit, and can be done with much less equipment. However, if you are speaking of re-releases, as I think you were, many "audiophile" re-releases of older recordings made in analog are remastered from the original analog tapes, though there are of course digital ones as well.

Many of those who say that digital surpasses analog in sound quality are those who are listening only superficially, and are too caught up in surface noise (and yes, I include many people that call themselves audiophiles in that group). Those of us who truly listen to music with well-trained ears know better. Digital simply does not have the sheer dynamic range of analog, nor does it recreate the sense of the original recording space nearly as much, in terms of soundstaging, imaging, air, bloom, etc. Also, again because of the different type of distortion and the frequency at which this distortion occurs, it does not resolve instrumental or vocal timbres nearly as well - they don't have the body and breadth and complexity they do in analog. All of these things add up - digital simply does not sound as alive and real as analog does, and so it cannot catch the soul of music in the same way, as the original poster put it.

Is digital reproduction improving as resolution gets better? Yes. Is it more convenient? Yes. I am not arguing that it is "done wrong," as someone suggested. And I am not arguing that it is obviously the way of the future. But that doesn't mean that it is therefore better. It means that it is cheaper, more convenient, and sounds "good enough" for most. Audiophiles are an extremely small percentage of the market, lest anyone forget. Because of the inherent types of distortion, no matter how good it gets in the future, digitally reproduced sound will never rival a good, properly set-up analog rig (I do not argue that it certainly rivals bad or improperly set up rigs). This is easily heard by direct comparison of the same recording on the same system, and you would find very few professional musicians who disagree. Not one person I have ever done this type of demonstration for, professional or otherwise, has ever preferred the digital recording to the analog. It is not a question of having an open mind, Mapman, it is a question of having open ears. Those of us who have open ears are the ones keeping analog alive.