Analog Apologist

[MylesBAstor]

First of all we have got to get Myles a first class cd player. Maybe he could pawn that r2r. You only need it every once and a while for those few magnificent tapes you have. Another thing I like that I can play my favorite song many tomes in a row without worrying about record wear. Sometimes I get so much music on one cd I can't even listen to them all in one setting.

Have a pretty good one in the Altis Audio 24/96 Reference DAC and CDT-III transport. Also have a Sony SCD-1 here. They're just not hooked up to the system. But they look pretty sitting there. BTW the Altis is a tube based DAC and one of the most listenable DACs I've ever heard.

 

[Gregadd]

Can't be too good or you'd be listening to it. Just kidding about your r2r. Don't let that get away. No true digital file would listen to a tube based dac. That's like putting coke in your jack Daniels. You want that raw digital sound. Otherwise you might as well listen to vinyl.

 

[MylesBAstor]

can't be too good or you'd be listening to it. just kidding about your r2r. Don't let that get away. No true digital file would listen to a tube based dac. That's like putting coke in your jack daniels. You want that raw digital sound. Otherwise you might as well listen to vinyl.

rof....

 

[Gregadd]

I am looking for a cd player. My Sony DVD/CD is dying. I'm going to audition the Esoteric X-05 this weekend. Seriously In the the beginning I buffered my CD with tubes. It was the only you could do about that top end that was similar to sticking needles in your ear.

Genearaly speaking it is not a good sign when equipment is sitting in the corner unused. Maybe you should find it a home with someone who can love it(not me).

 

[tonmeister2008]

I'd I can't tell you how many defective CDs I bought over the years eg. they skipped, wouldn't advance past a certain track, etc..

CD's? You mean those shiny discs that old people listen to? Dude:they're so passe.

 

[tonmeister2008]

But the $30 player would have the deathly digital silence that digital lovers love. It's really the only thing they can thump their chest over.

There's more than digital silence. How about significantly less distortion + noise (clicks,pops, noise, wow & flutter), more stable pitch, more effective dynamic range, typically flatter frequency response, no self-erasure of magnetic tapes/vinyl that warps/degrades with each use, significantly higher usability, convenience and sharing of music, greater consistency in manufacturing of product, higher price-to-performance ratio, greater repeatability in playback of media (no need to calibrate,demagatize CD player or clean and apply anti-static fluid to digital bits)........

i had a tape recorder and turntable until 1986. After I started measuring and calibrating them I realized how nonlinear they were, and never looked back. Once you hear and learn the distortions it's hard to ignore them. It's amazing they sound as good as they do, and that we are able to put up with the distortions and the inconvenience and lack of usability. I'm no longer one of those people that can.

I checked out this Valin reviewer at TAS who says that his main triggers are cues that tell him whether he's hearing live music or a recording of it. For me, as soon as I hear surface noise, clicks,pops, ticks, and hiss, I know I'm listening to a recording. There is a cognitive-dissonance that prevents me to suspend disbelief.

 

[LesAuber]

Don't you just love blond vs brunette debates. No right answer. Can't argue that digital isn't quieter, measures better (well at least once some of the tomfoolery of the intro to perfect sound forever was dropped) doesn't wear out etc. However, there is something that a well recorded and reproduced analog recording does that can be magic. Can't explain it beyond the tired old saw of there's more there there. I've used digital since essentially the start of CD but it somehow comes off a bit antiseptic. It's gotten really good and anymore is likely more accurate but never seems to lose that bit of sterility that says recording.

And for the record it's brunettes...

 

[Ron Party]

It's gotten really good and anymore is likely more accurate but never seems to lose that bit of sterility that says recording.

The virtual absence of coloration is honest to the source. Sometimes it is brutally honest and mistaken for *sterility*.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I realize the OP is not being completely serious, but anyone who really thinks the only advantage digital has over analog is a lower noise floor is simply not paying attention. Yes, there can be something special about a great analog recording (the last one that broke my heart was Shelby Lynn's "Just a Little Lovin"), and it can be heard much more clearly on digital media than on vinyl. Last but not least, the notion that digital leaves bits of the music behind represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how digital sampling works. That's a myth created by analog heathens.

P

 

[mep]

P-I admit to being an analog heathen. If digital doesn't leave bits of music behind (and I don't mean it missed a 0 or 1), then something else is amiss. And I am not buying Ron's argument that digital is brutally honest and that's why it sounds sterile. Digital is brutal though. I do understand why some people abandoned their analog rigs for the greener pasture of digital. Because analog is noiser than digital (and on that note I am sure we can all agree), I am not going to throw the baby out the with the bath water. Digital threw the baby away.

Mark

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

then something else is amiss.

Not so much amiss as missing -- wow, flutter, compression, crosstalk, inner groove distortion. When the music starts and its loud enough to mask the high noise floor, there is still plenty to distinguish vinyl from digital, and while you may be used to it, so used to it that you miss it when it's gone, none of it is, in any objective sense of the word "good," except for one thing: vinyl is often mastered much better. Some of the early CDs were nothing more than masters created for the limitations of vinyl, dumped into the digital media without a second thought. They can sound pretty bad. And far too much (most? all?) current popular music is a victim of the loudness wars and is mastered horribly on purpose...unless it is mastered for an audiophile market, ie: vinyl, SACD, etc. But the same master on vinyl and CD? No contest. If you prefer the vinyl you simply have your ears trained to prefer the vinyl, simple as that.

P

 

[LesAuber]

The virtual absence of coloration is honest to the source. Sometimes it is brutally honest and mistaken for *sterility*.

Being brutally honest isn't always a virtue. Either in life or sound reproduction. A necessity in a studio monitor but not something completely desirable elsewhere.

 

[Albertporter]

Not so much amiss as missing -- wow, flutter, compression, crosstalk, inner groove distortion. When the music starts and its loud enough to mask the high noise floor, there is still plenty to distinguish vinyl from digital, and while you may be used to it, so used to it that you miss it when it's gone, none of it is, in any objective sense of the word "good," except for one thing: vinyl is often mastered much better. Some of the early CDs were nothing more than masters created for the limitations of vinyl, dumped into the digital media without a second thought. They can sound pretty bad. And far too much (most? all?) current popular music is a victim of the loudness wars and is mastered horribly on purpose...unless it is mastered for an audiophile market, ie: vinyl, SACD, etc. But the same master on vinyl and CD? No contest. If you prefer the vinyl you simply have your ears trained to prefer the vinyl, simple as that.

P

I love how certain digital lovers are that analog cannot be right. Ever stop to think that analog is how the human ear works?

What's true is most people like digital because it's cheap, easy and requires little effort. Analog is better but requires a hell of a lot of work to make right. Like many things in life the things that are the hardest to achieve are the ones most worth fighting and working for.

I've been around this for 45 years, committed completely to digital when it came out and spent the next 20 years convincing myself that the next generation would finally give me the emotion and believability that analog does. I've had more than twenty high end players in my system and none can compete with the best analog. Mike Lavigne has the latest Playback Design machine and Fred Crowder (Dagogo) has the news Meitner. Both agree their analog beats their digital.

How about for What's Best Forum we agree that digital is the best cheap format, provided you don't spend enough to make it a bad investment. Also agree that if you work hard at it the best sound for home is analog, at least among the formats that us mortals can access on our own.

If you are friends with high powered people and can get a master file from the original digital hard drive and use the best D to A available then I agree that digital would (could) be wonderful. But CD? Give me a break, it was a joke when it was invented 25 years ago and it's still got most of the inherent problems it was born with.

LP is an evolution of about 100 years. The difference is the people at Sony and Phillips don't control how much resolution we're allowed to own like they do with digital.

 

[Ron Party]

^ ^

All subjective. Not one single attempt to cite any evidence to support this position.

Analog and digital are storage mediums. How the ear works, which can be described as digital as well as analog (it really is a matter of semantics, as our resident expert Kal has already stated), is a classic Audiophile red herring. It is irrelevant. No one is his/her right mind would state that VHS (with its glorious 240 lines of resolution) is better than Blu Ray because VHS is analog.

Now the corollary also bears examination. No one is his/her right mind would state that MP3 @ 64 kbs is better than R2R because it is digital. The lesson here is, of course, that it is the capability of the medium itself that must be examined.

As such, if one wants to extol a medium's superiority, and not just talk about the mastering, then that person should offer more than anecdotal evidence.

To that end, re-read Dr. Olive's post. While he finds analog unlistenable, another subjective opinion, he also offers real science (as does Phelonious Ponk), i.e., a list of some (but not even all) of the ways that the digital has more capability than analog as a medium.

 

[Ron Party]

Being brutally honest isn't always a virtue. Either in life or sound reproduction. A necessity in a studio monitor but not something completely desirable elsewhere.

Putting *virtue* aside, your point reminds me of the 4 different categories of sound reproduction goals to which Tom Mallin made reference in a couple of his articles in this Forum. Honesty is THE goal in sound reproduction if your goal is the same as that which forms much of the basis for Dr. Olive's work, and which Dr. Olive writes in his first paragraph in this thread:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?865-Audio-Science-in-the-Service-of-Art

 

[Gregadd]

Being subjective is what its all about. The stereo equipment is trying to create the illusion of real music. There is no test for that. Albert is saying that vinyl creates the illusion for him in the way that digital never has. And you are quite right I do not accept your premise. Fidelity to real music is my goal. When Dr. Olive talks about Listener Preference that is a subjective effect. Unless you are talking about some neurotic audiophile the general public makes a purchase based on what does it for them, they could care less about science.
As Myles pointed there is someone who uses a live feed in their blind test. Curiously the participants preferred tubes over solid sate.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

How about for What's Best Forum we agree that digital is the best cheap format, provided you don't spend enough to make it a bad investment. Also agree that if you work hard at it the best sound for home is analog, at least among the formats that us mortals can access on our own.

No, we cannot agree to that. We think vinyl is sloppy and distorted, and that the well-mastered Redbook CD is superior. You do not agree. That's the subjective part: Our opinion against yours. The objective part? We win, hands down.

P

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

No one is his/her right mind would state that MP3 @ 64 kbs is better than R2R because it is digital.

Don't be so sure. I once watched a group of audiophiles on a discussion board go on for several days and pages, arguing passionately that cassette tape is superior to CD.

P

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

The stereo equipment is trying to create the illusion of real music.

No, it's really not. Sometimes recordings do make that attempt, often they don't. But playback equipment can only attempt to reproduce what is in the recording. That's what it plays; it does not play real music. It's really that simple.

You can, in a very limited way, "remaster" the recording if you like, in an attempt to make it "better" to your ears. This is what equalization is for. Building the eq into the inaccuracy of your system colors everything the same, so while it may make some recordings "better," it will inevitably make others worse. Going to the art museum wearing rose-colored glasses. Enjoy the music.

P

 

[Gregadd]

No, it's really not. Sometimes recordings do make that attempt, often they don't. But playback equipment can only attempt to reproduce what is in the recording. That's what it plays; it does not play real music. It's really that simple.

You can, in a very limited way, "remaster" the recording if you like, in an attempt to make it "better" to your ears. This is what equalization is for. Building the eq into the inaccuracy of your system colors everything the same, so while it may make some recordings "better," it will inevitably make others worse. Going to the art museum wearing rose-colored glasses. Enjoy the music.

P

it would be naive to suggest that there is no monkeying around in the recording studio. That suggests there is no standard. Consequently that makes it even more subjective. I should then buy myself an equalizer and shape the music close to real as possible.