30 Years of Perfect Sound?

Stickman451, I agree with you, vinyl is still superior. I enjoy digital as well, but being the best not yet.

10-09-12: Stickman451
... I would agree that eventually, one day, digital will reach vinyl's performance and will even surpass it; that day just hasn't arrived quite yet...

I agree too, that eventually digital *should* be able to equal a high quality all-analog chain, but I don't think even the best of today's consumer digital technology will get us there. I think it will take a 32-bit word length to approach the fine granularity of amplitude distinctions of good analog, and a sampling rate of 352.4 or 384Khz. I've heard state-of-the-art 24/96 and (I think) 24/192 digital recordings through awesome electronics from Ayre, ARC, D'Agostino, and VTL, powering Wilson speakers, and even compared to my comparatively very modest vinyl rig at home, that digital playback only got me about 80% of the way there when it comes to refinement and emotional response.

Digital vs analog is a very interesting thing. The best illustration of the issues involved occurred when a guy I know did a demo at an audio society. What he did was take a brand new sealed record on a very good vinyl rig (well over $10K) and compared it to the same album on a computer. To his ears the computer murdered the vinyl. Guess what - it was 50-50 which people preferred. Its the same sort of thing comparing valve to SS.

Thanks
Bill