What does it mean when people describe Digital as Sounding like "Analog"? Best term?

the sound of Tao

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spiritofmusic

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Well, that puts wisdom back in it's box.
Pride next.
There was a reason that was classed a sin.
 

tima

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wisdom be stuffed... :)
Could this also read Tim as digital recording doesn’t capture sound because sound can be disingenuous and music is not?

...and basted.

Isn't it the other way around? Whether captured or not, sound is sound - logically independent of experience it can be neither disingenuous or genuous (<- a made up word). Whether music is is left to the listener, though it might be ingenious.

Which raises the question what makes sound music? Is it fair to say I make sound music? (Yes, two meanings, I know. Not in the sense of 'valid' but creation or at least cognition.)
 
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bonzo75

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But is your philosophy to reproduce music sound
 
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microstrip

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I think we have a consensus to stipulate that anyone who comments on this topic further on is unwise

No, on the contrary. IMHO there are still many interesting things to be said on the main subject of this thread.
 

the sound of Tao

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...and basted.

Isn't it the other way around? Whether captured or not, sound is sound - logically independent of experience it can be neither disingenuous or genuous (<- a made up word). Whether music is is left to the listener, though it might be ingenious.

Which raises the question what makes sound music? Is it fair to say I make sound music? (Yes, two meanings, I know. Not in the sense of 'valid' but creation or at least cognition.)
I’m not sure... I am usually asking myself also. Zero hubris.

Music is music. Sound can also be music. The correlation between each of us and the artist is a meeting point with music but then music exists without either you or me... and music exists even without the artist. There is music everywhere if you listen.

Play file also.
More listening.
 
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Al M.

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the sound of Tao

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Music for me is when I am not aware of the sound.
 

Al M.

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Music for me is when I am not aware of the sound.

I suppose you mean not aware of analyzing the quality of the sound reproduction.

If you are not aware of the sound you are not aware of any music.
 

bonzo75

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the sound of Tao

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I suppose you mean not aware of analyzing the quality of the sound reproduction.

If you are not aware of the sound you are not aware of any music.
Al this is the best way that I can put it... I am not analysing the sound or the music, I am listening to the music and just not aware of the sound... this implies separation. When I’m listening to the music there is no sense of separation.
 

Kingrex

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Technically I should not be using my vinyl at all right now. I don't have one of Tima's record cleaning machines. I have now ruined 3 needles in less than 300 hours of play per each. I wash my records and clean the cartridge every use with a tacky strip. Still, i dont have ultrasonic and wash every time like diehard vinyl do.
 

Kingrex

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I was playing some non optimum vinyl this morning. Music I like of ok source material. When I tired of it I put some Monk via Qobuz on. Just ahhhhh. Now that's nice. It's all good.
 

PeterA

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Tao was hitting on what I think is the most important topic if your measuring digital and vinyl. It's what really is natural and real. One of rhe members at Audionirvana was doing a deep 4 part dive on a Pass Preamp. His first pages was just finding what is natural. He talked of spending days at an orchestra with a mentor explaining what to listen for, what to feel for. What is "live". He then realized his stereo was tunes for "hifi". Not "live".

In bet most people tune for hifi. I would contend my digital is a little more hifi and my vinyl is a little more live. Simply focusing on what live really is and building out your digital with isolstion, cables, power etc that emulate a live sound, may help shift your digital from a hifi sound and more to live sound.

FWIW. If you find the thread, I tried Ching Cheng cables. They were not right for me. But I don't know that $5000 cables are either. 4 of my cables are a nice hook up wire with a decent female socket at my equipment. Instead of a male plug going into a receptacle at my wall I use a cord grip and bring the cable into a box where it is split bolted and taped to the branch circuit wires from my house. I measure 0mv of potential between the neutral and ground at my preamp and .12mv at my amps. Thats pretty darn good. When I started at my friend Eds place, he had up to 70mv inside his panel. God only knows what was going on at his rack. His main panel is now 0. His sub panel was 30mv. Its 45 feet from his main panel. Its copper #4. Even the ground is #4. Since I last measured he added new ground rods and took his ground rod resistance from 40 or 50 ohms to 1/2 an ohm. That may have dropped his neutral to ground resistance even lower at his sub panel.
My point is, what are you doing to get the foundation of your system set up in such a way thay it is stable. Stable so that you have a base to start from and "tune" your system to a "live or natural" sound. Do you even know what that is. The goal isn't a comparison of vinyl to digital. Its tuning your equipmemt to reproduce a sound you like. Which many here say is recreation of a live venue or studio performance. Have you spent time with your server and dac placing them on different racks. Different footers. Different power cables. Different digital cables. Your digital may be able to close the gap on "live" more than you think if you focus on what that really sounds like and work towards it.
Im poor so I have to use what I can. I hear a big difference between the footers I use under my server and phono preamp. I have tried all sorts of iterations and these are the best. A bead and corian on vinyl and insulation on corian for digital. Just making the point about listening and turning to what you hear.

Kingrex, you may be referring to me. I posted my impressions of my new Pass preamp here as well. I can expand a bit on what my mentor in Vienna was talking about and how years later with the help of WBF member DDK, I am starting to realize this "natural" sound in my own system. It is one way in which I now recognize the difference between a system which sounds "natural" and one which sounds "hifi". Here is how I think of it:

Sound originates from a singer or instrument in a real space. When we listen to a recording, the system can present an image of the singer or instrument. We can localize that and we start to describe a system’s imaging and sound staging capabilities. I think of that as distinct and separate from the launch of that energy or sound out into space. We hear the hall fill with sound at a live concert. A successful audio system fills up a listening room with energy, just as a cello energizes a live hall.

I heard this energy from one singer or one cello at both the edge of the stage during rehearsals and from the director's box in the back of the great Vienna State Opera during the evening performances. Less successful audio systems simply present the image and stage and sound as something distant or remote, as if one is observing it rather than being enveloped by the sound or energy of the voice or instrument.

This portrayal of the sound generated from a voice or instrument on a stage within the imagined soundstage in our listening rooms leaving its origins and moving to fill the space we occupy, and indeed the whole listening room, is what makes the sound “natural” to me. (along with convincing timbre, dynamics, etc.) It needs to be effortless, as it is in real life.

When done really well, we leave the realm of hifi and enter the realm of the natural portrayal of sound. It helps to understand this, IMO, if we explain the distinction between the origin of the sound and how the sound then leaves and fills the space. However, in reality, it is one thing, inseparable, and a whole. One does not hear the two as separate and indistinguishable, but rather, it is one thing, and it is the incredible energy created by the bow against the strings and the wooden body vibrating.

A friend today described for me this effect in his system at home. He explained how the organ in Cantata Domino takes up a physical location in the church and its images at a location on the front wall of his listening room. But the sound is everywhere once it leaves the pipes. It breaks forward of the plane of the speakers, the front wall, everything in front of the listener and, most importantly, it fills the space in which the listener is sitting. Both at the concert hall and in the listening room. This energy becomes a physical presence in the room, not a sound and image observed in front of the listener.

This would be near impossible to demonstrate using only one system. It is better demonstrated using two different systems one that can do it and one that cannot. The system either does this or it does not. It is either natural sounding, or it is not. My system used to struggle with this. Now it does not.

This is a bit off the analog/digital topic, but it gets to the heart of why I think a properly assembled and set up audio system can sound convincing and like the natural sound of music.

Peter
 
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Kingrex

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Sound originates from a singer or instrument in a real space. When we listen to a recording, the system can present an image of the singer or instrument. We can localize that and we start to describe a system’s imaging and sound staging capabilities. I think of that as distinct and separate from the launch of that energy or sound out into space. We hear the hall fill with sound at a live concert. A successful audio system fills up a listening room with energy, just as a cello energizes a live hall.

I heard this energy from one singer or one cello at both the edge of the stage during rehearsals and from the director's box in the back of the great Vienna State Opera during the evening performances. Less successful audio systems simply present the image and stage and sound as something distant or remote, as if one is observing it rather than being enveloped by the sound or energy of the voice or instrument.


Peter

Thanks Peter. Yes, I was refering to your thread. I responded to one thread in Audionirvana today.

In all my audio years, I have only heard one stereo where I think I understand what you are talking about. The amazing thing is it resides in a 2 car garage with no acoustic treatment. The electronics are Altec 1570 B and 1569 amps. The speakers are Live Sound Design speakers that are recreations of the Altec theater speakers. 8 foot wide duel woofers horns with 15" drivers and a 12 cell multi cell horns made from wood. The speakers have nice EV drivers. The horn has ok compression drivers. Nothing special.

In front of that system I heard Simon and Garfunkel live in Central Park. I swear to god. I felt like I was on the stage with the singers right there with me. I could close my eyes and touch them. The sound either put them with me, or me with them. Either way, I have never heard it at any other audio show or home. That system sold me on big horns. I am trying to make it happen with my PAP Trio 15s. I now have 2 sets of amps and a Mini DSP crossover to try and dial in the settings to then have a active, non digital, all analog active crossover made to drive them. There is something magic when you direct couple a drive to a speaker.

I don't use crazy cables myself. I have made some power cables and a power distribution system. I do have nice interconnects. I try to work with the equipment to have that be the instrument I am tuning to get a Live sound. I believe if people spent more time with there digital and had a goal in mind of what they wanted it to do, it would achieve levels of playback that would calm many peoples concerns over digital providing that magic. My whole system isn't quite there yet. I am listening and learning. I believe if I successfully biamp and get that where I want it, the concern over digital and vinyl will be that much further in the rear view mirror. There is so much else that can be done to vault a system to excellence. Fretting over the minor difference between digital and vinyl should be a 3rd level concern.
 
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Tango

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the only thing i really appreciate, their company this afternoon for an hour or two (between protest marches). we will practice social distancing. i'm over it completely on a personal level, but my kids are concerned for my wife and i due to our age. and they are more listening to different views on that than we are.

you choose your battles. i try to avoid anything even slightly political with my kids.
Great to see members of your family practice social distancing Mike. At your age, just can't let your guard down. Please be careful of guests visiting you. It is not even close to finish of first wave over there. We keep you company on wbf and you don't need to wear a mask talking to me. :D
 

the sound of Tao

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Well, that puts wisdom back in it's box.
Pride next.
There was a reason that was classed a sin.
The sin perhaps is to have music and a system and still not enjoy it because we’re worrying about all the things that could be and so not enjoying the things as they are.

Desire is a fab driver but a cruel mistress.

On sins... I generally mostly do the ones of omission and sometimes go for the ones of commission but rarely ones of submission or a failure of contrition. With the great lock-down I‘m currently working on getting my sins of emission down...
 

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