Can digital get to vinyl sound and at what price?
- Thread starter ScottK
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To clarify my thoughts, and I don't know how they align to yours - there has indeed been a focus on the "quality" of the incoming signal - and that is the debate concerning whether "bit perfect" is sufficient or not. But I believe there are many other variables in a DAC's design that influence the outcome - it does not only come down to the DAC's ability to handle the incoming signal and extract the "bits" from the "noise". But the difficulty in all this is that we never listen to DACs, we listen to complete systems. DAC comparisons are very difficult because we don't have "perfect" components to match them with.
And things get even more complicated when you take into account the fact that the digital signal itself always contains imperfections at the source: recording "jitter" (from the ADC step). So you could have a "perfect" DAC, which introduces zero additional jitter, and it could theoretically sound worse than a DAC which introduces some random jitter and in a sense "compensates" for the recording jitter...
That has been what drives any system changes I make (within the confines of the recording).
I don't see how this question is any less subjective or argumentative than the Op's question or any derivative of it. Who is in a position to set the standard for everyone else as to what it means to be a music lover, by what means they can only listen to music to be ascribed a "music lover", and what musical enjoyment is?
Hi Hopkins,
Thanks for the discussion. We don’t disagree here. I had intended for my points 1-3 to cover at least the essence what you’re saying. The point I was making is that having a bit perfect file, while important, is not the only thing necessary to achieving the maximum out of digital. Keeping the entire system of DAC, Amps and Speakers the same, there are improvements in the digital domain that can be made to a system that is playing bit perfect copies of a file that will massively improve its sound quality. A lot of people believe that in the digital domain, bit perfect is the pinnacle. My experience and that of others whose opinions I very much respect is that ’bit perfect transmission of data is just the jumping-off point. Start with a system transmitting bit perfect copies of the data and improve the bit stream quality from there
Well,
Do digitalites hear differently from Analogites , what about those with both as oppose to the fixed in one camp is best bloke.
As to the OP directive , IME , digital is more complex and expensive to achieve Analog quality levels. A good analog rig will be good and relevant today , tomrw , a decade from now, how many with decade old Digital can say so.
Regards
Do digitalites hear differently from Analogites , what about those with both as oppose to the fixed in one camp is best bloke.
As to the OP directive , IME , digital is more complex and expensive to achieve Analog quality levels. A good analog rig will be good and relevant today , tomrw , a decade from now, how many with decade old Digital can say so.
Regards
I listened to an album in different versions this afternoon, and wrote this about it after: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/duke-ellington-the-pianist.38144/post-940932
This is just an example. With some more modern recordings (or even other older recordings), one may reach the opposite conclusion.
Listening to this album (Ellington's "Back to Back"), I cannot help but think that more audiophiles should include these types of tracks in their playlists when they attempt to evaluate systems and components. The typical audiophile tracks rarely provide similar "richness" and "depth" of individual instruments (resulting from the recording, but also from the musicians themselves). These typical audiophile recordings are impressive for different reasons, and the systems that they shine on often fail on these older recordings, probably because they don't dig deep enough into the music.... I have experienced this first hand listening to a number of systems... Unfortunately, we can't always have it all
This is just an example. With some more modern recordings (or even other older recordings), one may reach the opposite conclusion.
Listening to this album (Ellington's "Back to Back"), I cannot help but think that more audiophiles should include these types of tracks in their playlists when they attempt to evaluate systems and components. The typical audiophile tracks rarely provide similar "richness" and "depth" of individual instruments (resulting from the recording, but also from the musicians themselves). These typical audiophile recordings are impressive for different reasons, and the systems that they shine on often fail on these older recordings, probably because they don't dig deep enough into the music.... I have experienced this first hand listening to a number of systems... Unfortunately, we can't always have it all
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Hi there,
I have a slightly different view of things:
Firstly audiophiles shouldn’t hear differently, their ears don’t change. However their preferences may evolve. I used to listen to and prefered analog for over 50 years. Then I recently changed to digital streaming and listened to no analog for about 5 years. On a whim I bought a new TT and records. It sounded just like I remembered, but now it also sounded quite dated in a similar, albeit less extreme way 78s sounded in the 60s and 70s compared to the LP.
Regarding the expense of both technologies: include the cost of recordings and the cost situation quickly reverses. A really carefully and fully optimized digital streaming system is expensive to establish but costs £20 a month for almost unlimited recordings. That’s about the cost of a single vinyl record.
A good analog rig will sound the same today, tomorrow and a decade from now (assuming the records have lasted that long). A good digital rig should have evolved and sound a lot better than a decade previously. As previously stated, digital rig’s running expense lies in its evolving technology, the analog rig’s costs lie in obtaining the recordings.
And a good digital rig will be absolute and almost worthless in 10 years, the good TT will not, your used records sell at relative high prices too. I did digital 20 years too, getting back into good vinyl was like coming home, now i only listen to digital when my TT is down.
And a good digital rig will be absolute and almost worthless in 10 years, the good TT will not, your used records sell at relative high prices too. I did digital 20 years too, getting back into good vinyl was like coming home, now i only listen to digital when my TT is down.
what I read was that you listened to digital when you were married, and switched back to analog when your wife left
to avoid it all together, buy a backup TTAnd a good digital rig will be absolute and almost worthless in 10 years, the good TT will not, your used records sell at relative high prices too. I did digital 20 years too, getting back into good vinyl was like coming home, now i only listen to digital when my TT is down.
Hi Lagonda,And a good digital rig will be absolute and almost worthless in 10 years, the good TT will not, your used records sell at relative high prices too. I did digital 20 years too, getting back into good vinyl was like coming home, now i only listen to digital when my TT is down.
‘Evolved’ means ‘changed gradually’ so at least conceptually, the digital rig I have today, won‘t be the rig I would have in 10 years time. Those changes are the basis of the costs I was referring to. To repeat, in analog the costs come from buying recorded materials whereas in digital the costs come from evolving (changing) the hardware to stay up to date and ensure I’m always getting the best available sound quality.
I can imagine that abandoning digital from 20 years ago was a breath of fresh air. For many years digital didn’t sound anything like as good as vinyl. Indeed for me it was only within the last 5 years that I figured out how to get more out of digital. Prior to that it was OK but certainly vinyl was better. My breakthough came when I stopped believing that all I needed was a bit perfect file and found additional ways to enhance the bit stream and with it, the resulting sound quality
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Republicoftexas69
Well-Known Member
Streaming is merely background music while I work. 95% of my critical listening is done on my analog front end .
If we understand "bit perfect" as the accurate translation of the digital bits in the original file into an analog signal at the output of the DAC, then we unfortunately have no way of verifying this.
Yes once it was safe to own a cartridge again !
In fact that’s not what bit perfect means. Bit perfect refers to the file that’s being used in the translation having an identical bit structure to the digital file at its notional source, usually a CD. Take a CD, rip it in a PC, store on your server then compare the stored file’s bit structure to the CD. Exactly the same? Then your stored copy is bit perfect. Like for like, an exact copy, no missing, lost or erroneous bits.
The problem in streaming is that transmission via a network can result in bits being lost, misread or incorrectly replaced by error correcting firmware. A CD reader may produce errors, the network may drop bits etc and these errors can be heard. Theoretically a bit perfect file should produce the best ‘possible’ output from the DAC, all other things being equal. I found that not to be the case in that there are still major improvements to be had even when the file is bit perfect.
I am well aware of the typical définition of "bit perfect", however I think it is interesting to consider it more broadly.
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