When is digital going to get the soul of music?

I can very much sympathise with your "battle", as in many ways I have gone through similar myself: the difference being that in my case I was able to reach a positive, rather than negative outcome, with what would be considered pretty ordinary equipment, playing very ordinary CD's; others have seemingly achieved similar results. I will just repeat what I have said elsewhere that I have experienced very expensive, highly tweaked, at home vinyl setups that have sounded a) stunning, and b) excrutiatingly harsh and unpleasant, so I certainly am aware how there can be two ends of the scale, irrespective of the time and money spent.

The answer, to repeat myself, is system engineering, and yes, in digital it can be much harder to get it right, compared to vinyl, but superb results on that "nasty" 44.1k digital CAN be achieved.

Finally, a "thought" experiment. I would suggest that your own system, in top form, be modified by the addition of a black box completely hard wired in, with a bypass switch. This would be engineered so well that it would be 100% transparent with the bypass engaged (unlike how all these DBT setups most surely are typically set up,) to yourself and anyone else you care to have listen. In the black box is a "done right" 44.1 analogue to digital converter feeding a 44.1 digital to analogue converter, engineered CORRECTLY with current technology, and, you can guess what's coming, I would seriously suggest that the people listening would find it close to impossible to pick when the extra circuitry was part of the mix ...

I appreciate your passion, I felt that way at one time a good many years ago.

As time passes you realize it's a delusion that you can make a difference and then get down to the business of making music the best you can with what really works and what is available instead of just wishing.

I am friends with a good many people in the business, have completed advertising photography for dozens and dozens of high end brands, both analog and digital.

The short answer is, only long term listening can reveal what is really right and what is not. Digital can be "good" but never the level of analog master tape or LP at its limit.

Over the years we have had duplicate copies of both CD and LP and compared with many brands and quality levels. If you get LP reproduction poor enough and digital good enough then digital can make a good showing.

If you have analog at the best it can be and digital the best it can be then analog wins unless there is an extraordinary (bad or good) copy on both sides. I can't cling to the <20% times when digital makes a "decent" showing for an investment of $25K +.

Over the last few years I've worked hard to accumulate master tapes. I had my Studer rebuild two years ago by the (previous) head guy at Studer USA. You have no idea what this machine can do, it will scare the hell out of you sometimes and set your head straight as to what is possible.

My turntable when it's maxed out at 100% can get maybe 80% (+) of what the tape is doing. The CD is not worth comparing at that point, believe me.

Also, read this (partial) post of mine on this same thread nearly three years ago. It's still very much true and why I sometime come off as angry.

I've had at least a hundred thousand dollars worth of digital through my system, most on loan or product that was a perspective item for review. I also bought a lot.

When a promise is made over and over and disappointment follows there are a couple of reactions a person can have. Sadness that it's not what you were expecting, and later (after the same things happen fifty times), anger that you were taken advantage of.

I've had this enough times to be angry, I've given up on digital other than for background or breaking in components. Happy for others that have made it work, perhaps we hear differently or it's a system thing.

Alex, thanks for that set of thoughts! I agree with you, minimising phase noise is everything, but I would say the only place where it is critical is right next to the DAC chip (or discrete circuitry, Accuphase, say). The big trouble with separate transport and converter box is getting the clean clock where it is needed, and of course as you know there are many ways of doing this. I am intrigued to note that the newish Naim DAC solves the problem by having multiple, slightly different frequency crystals, so you have minimal buffering needs AND bare crystal phase noise. And, by all accounts, it can do an excellent job of the converting ...

Frank

(Alex) Sure, but in my experience there are also recordings available on high-res digital media that, for some reason, sound better than the analog release, so I guess good digital is not a bad thing to have around.

I don't disagree that digital is good to have around. I have a player but it's really only impressive on Blue Ray.

I'm frequently frustrated to find an artist I really love (an excellent example HERE ) and find there is no LP release.

Buying and playing on poor performing digital only makes me angry, most of my CDs get transferred to my iPod and play in the car where the sound is so bad you don't notice :^).

(Alex again)Maybe you would consider auditioning my NWO-M digital player, and I'd be thrilled if Joe Harley can hear it too!!

I would be pleased to hear what you have. Joe lives in California, so unfortunately I only see him at shows. When I was younger I traveled to visit friends out there pretty often.

Many fond memories of good times with Steve McCormack, Richard Vandersteen, Joe Harley, Mike Elliott (Counterpoint) and many others out there but we have all gotten older and life more complicated.

""""It is clear how much in-love you are with your transport, and I appreciate that, but have you seen how a top-line Esoteric VRDS-NEO compares to the "outsourced" transports you are talking about? Take a close look at this here. The "outsourced transports" are on the left. Please note that the shiny disk you see on the picture is a Magnesium clamper that is not only a clamper but the actual spindle motor. In other words, it clamps and spins the disc at the same time."""""

Aplhifi,

Ok, I looked and was unimpressed. As I said, the Flatfish is an outstanding performer. All the heavy armor never did any good against the fleet of hoof power hitting Mongols. All the heavy mass CD spinners with whatever clamps cannot make any ground against the short path simplest parts Flatfish.

The reason is, the answer is in the 47 Lab philosophy, "Only the simplest can accomplish the most complex."

Albertporter and others who have had frustrating experience with digital, I am not sure which $$$$$ digital you have tried but, i tell you, if you ever have a chance give it a try on the Zanden digital combo. It would be even more rewarding and eye opening experience if you have a luxury to audition the combo in an all Zanden system... I have a good fortune to have an all Zanden system at home for now, oh may be 4 years and the Zanden actually beats analog more times than not. And my analog (uses Zanden Phono pre also) is also optimized. On excellent recordings it is * hard* to tell the difference. I love my Zanden digital especially there is more software choices available in CD than Vinyl.
It delivers jaw dropping life like performance every time i put on *modern* ( read: new releases) Jazz or rock or classical CDs. Better the recordings, better the performance. I have practically the whole CD catalogue from RR and Mapleshade and it even excels the already stellar performance I get from *regular* jazz/classical labels. It is truly the digital with tons of soul- all with the humble 16/44.1 CD format. It features no oversampling and true phase coherent design.

I am not here to say mine is better than yours -or brag, just to prove form personal experience that the digital * has* got soul, you just have to find the right source- like many have found in theirs. Sure analog tape could be better and Vinyl too ( at times, yes even in my set up it does exceed digital at times for certain genre) but what good is having finite number of master tapes copies whereas there is much more choices with Vinyl material and even more with CDs.

So yes, I have found a soul in digital.

It was not not an easy journey though, both in terms of $$ and time. I, too, went through (audition and bought) number of digital units prior to this- one notable being the Metronome digital combo. Peace!!