I'm still working to love digital, are you?

Sean,

In response to your question, yes I'm a big believer in Stan's work. His modifications are world class and produce more analog sounding digital than most other offerings that I've auditioned. This does not change my opinion of digital versus analog sound though.

To me, analog still has a fluidity and harmonic integrity that is less prevalent in digital playback. It's this fluidity that I long for and cherish more than any other part of the musical experience. I've been a musician since I was a child, and have been exposed to both classical and modern music all my life. Being around live instruments for 35 years has me focusing on subtle harmonics and this "fluidity" that defines realism.

I realize that great digital gear has now surpassed analog in many areas (bass authority, image stability, silent backgrounds, etc..). When I listen to digital, I try to embrace and appreciate all that it does right. Unfortunately it still does not stir my soul the same way that analog does. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy digital immensely, I just enjoy analog more emotionally, i.e. "love".

For me, great digital is like having great sex with a perfect looking playboy model that knows all the right moves. Analog is like making love to your soulmate who's not as perfect looking, and not necessarily the absolute best physical lover, but her inherent substance warms your heart and stirs your soul, each and every time you are with her.

Hey Eric...most of all that you love about analog *should* be present in hi-res digital (if they ever get their act together). You're missing all of the details that 16 bit audio just can't hold. Some info has to go when the music is transferred to 16 bit, and it ends up being all of the subtle details...all of the little cues that make it more "real" sounding. 16bit technology keeps improving and I know it sounds better and better, but it can only get so good. A certain amount of info is not on the 16bit disc, and no new technology can chage that. I also think part of analog's charm lies in the actual physical contact between the stylus and the groove. The music you hear has no ending...it goes from music to the sound of that contact (even if you can't hear it on your system). All digital has a finite starting point for each sound. The background is silence until a 1 or 0 pops up and the sound begins. It does make for a better listening experience in some ways, but I do think the fact that the noise seems to float, untethered, has a different psycological effect than the analog sounds which are all grounded in physical contact...just like voices, birds, the wind, waves, cars, non-digital instruments, and almost every other sound that we hear everyday. I think that physical beginning is one of the things that we enjoy about analog (consciously, or not), and I don't see how that can ever be present with digital technology...no matter how good the resolution may be.

Well to avoid such "digital stunt-racing" I've got some analogue and somehow manage to be less active in digital terms -- useless!!!

If you will tolerate a viewpoint from someone firmly in the digital camp, I think Ehider's illustration, just above, is an apt one. After years of listening to both live and recorded music with ears that have generally, sometimes grudgingly, been acknowledged to be pretty good, I find myself among that group of audiophiles who believe that the attraction of tubes and analog is not that they reveal things that digital conceals but that they impart subtle distortions that many people find extremely pleasant.

There is another thread running right now dealing with pro monitors vs. audiophile speakers. Quoted is a classic Stereophile piece by Gordon Holt in which he remarks that the real reason many audiophiles dislike pro monitors is not because they don't sound enough like live music but because they sound too much like live music. He goes on to discuss the subtle distortions that are customarily built into audiophile speakers and why people like them. I won't go on but commend that thread to you for your own reading.

A little case in point, albeit one dealing with tubes. I was listening last Sunday to a CD by Gloria Dei Cantores. I hasten to say that this is NOT a world class ensemble but they are popular with many folks and their music tends to be reasonably well recorded. The listening session began at my house, played through a Rega/Belles/JMLabs system. It migrated to a friend's home where the CD was replayed through a Njoe Tjoeb/CJ/Thiel system. Listening through my SS system, I found myself dissecting the Howells Gloucester Service as I would have done in my days as a singer and conductor, hearing parts, listening for ensemble and intonation, even noting room effects. Listening through my friend's valve system, I was transported to the experience of a cathedral evensong. Both were wonderful experiences. Very different experiences. I can certainly understand why many would find the latter the more "nirvanic" of the two. All that being said, however, there was not the slightest doubt by either of us that the SS reproduction was the more musically accurate, while the tube reproduction was the more euphonious.

A digital example of the same phenomenon: The same friend once played for our comparison an RCA vinyl recording (don't have details at hand) of Biggs playing some overplayed Bach on the Busch-Reisinger organ up at Harvard, followed by a re-release of the same tracks on CD. On the CD, I could listen with delight to the mechanical travails of that wonderful little organ, the nuances of the old man's articulation (how could he play like that with those gnarled, arthritic fingers?), even the uneven voicing of a chiffy flute on the gigue fugue. On the LP, I could sit back and enjoy a concert by a great player at the end of a great career. The vinyl was less accurate, less detailed, less revealing, but certainly more musical in the sense of being a pleasant aesthetic experience. Only the fact that some idiot was frying a pan of bacon in the background kept me from being tempted to dust off the old TT. :)

Please, oh please, don't read this as a flame and start writing polemical rebuttals. I realize that many of my fellow a'goners have invested tons of money in analog and tubes and have done so because they firmly believe they are getting closer to the holy grail thereby. That is precisely my point. Rather than having these endless debates over which is better, let's just talk about which we enjoy and why.

After all, isn't this supposed to be fun?

will

Eric and Will, i agree with both of your posts and understand EXACTLY where you are coming from. I just happen to think that the defining lines between the "soulmate" and "perfect lover" have become permanently blurred for me within the confines of ONE of my systems. Detail and musicality are now "married" just as two become one when in the throes of mutual passion. When i heard the results that i was getting, i knew that it was "magic". The lack of "prat" and "soul-less-ness" that i had been experiencing with digital had been banished to another realm.

As to what i'm hearing out of the other systems that i have, they still lean towards either the "accurate" or "musical" camps. That invisible barrier that separates those two camps still shows how tough it is to break the wall down and have one unified presentation of everything involved. Sean
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