Can digital get to vinyl sound and at what price?

[morricab]

Hell of a lot less of a danger to Life or Limb doing … Ahhhemmm 60mph down the A1 whilst attempting to extricate a chewed and partially digested Led Zeppelin ATLANTIC R440031

Yeah but....but...but...digital in an old Jag...

 

[Argonaut]

Yeah but....but...but...digital in an old Jag...

Originally had a Blaupunkt 8 track with integrated amp before the cassette Brad

 

[morricab]

Originally had a Blaupunkt 8 track with integrated amp before the cassette Brad

That's more like it!

 

[hopkins]

One more post - here's an example of a track from that Mosaic box set I was referring to earlier:

https://storage.googleapis.com/cloudplayer/samples/01%20Dialogue.flac

You can download it to play it and compare it to whatever version you want/have and let me know whever it sounds "flat and unemotional". If it does, you may want to revisit your "digital system"..

It is from this album:

https://www.discogs.com/master/92901-Bobby-Hutcherson-Dialogue

Here is a previous CD version on Qobuz (there are obviously many others):

Open Qobuz

open.qobuz.com

For anyone curious to know, these are the people behind the production of this Bobby Hutcherson set (whose sound quality impressed me):

Our team is made up of a Flock of Swans led by Andeas Meyer

Led by grammy award winning producer/engineer Andreas Meyer, our team is ready to support your current production needs.

www.swanstudios.nyc

They have worked on a number of recent Mosaic box set, and they all sound really good. They have also produced recently anthologies of Paul Robeson ("Voice of Freedom") and Marian Anderson ("Beyond the Music - Complete recorded legacy for RCA Victor"). These are all "CD only".

In addition to restoration/re-issues, they have produced new recordings. This one, which I have listened to, sounds very good (you can listen on Qobuz, for example):

Ethan Iverson - Every Note Is True - Blue Note Records

If the digital album is purchased, you will receive the full album via email upon purchase. Standard digital downloads are delivered as MP3 44.1khz/24-bit audio files. Please note, digital downloads are only available in the U.S. The purchase of physical music does not include a digital...

store.bluenote.com

It's a "digital only" release.

 

[dcathro]

Have you ever compared the black gates to Robert Hovland SuperCaps or Audio Note silver foils caps? Ever heard Duelund CAST tinned copper caps in a speaker crossover? If so, are they worth the money or no?

I have not tried the Audio Note film capacitors, silver or copper. I do use Duelund VSF and Cast copper foil caps in my speaker crossover. I found them to be far harmonically rich compared to Mundorf Supremes wich I use in less critical spots. I have to add that I am not a fan of the top Mundorf oil caps. Another cap that I tried and liked are the Audyn Copper Max.

 

[Lagonda]

Yeah but....but...but...digital in an old Jag...

I am ashamed to admit i have a McIntosh CD player with separate DA converter in my Aston Martin.

 

[Argonaut]

I am ashamed to admit i have a McIntosh CD player with separate DA converter in my Aston Martin.

So the mechanics at the breakdown garage get to listen to your CD’s quite regularly then

10 Things Aston Martin Owners Will Never Tell You

Thinking of buying an Aston Martin? You might reconsider after finding out what the owners will never tell you.

www.hotcars.com

 

[Zuman]

I am ashamed to admit i have a McIntosh CD player with separate DA converter in my Aston Martin. View attachment 134328

I'm ashamed for a different reason: I have a Gen 1 2006 DB9 (with the upgraded Linn audio system), but I wasn't satisfied with the CD player, so I replaced it with a Grom adapter kit to give me Bluetooth and USB audio. I run my music from a collection of miniature thumb drives I keep in the ashtray...

 

[hopkins]

I monitor this site to learn the facts, that is my agenda.
PQ says he spent over $100,000 testing neobium resistors against the leading tantalum type and found they sound better (smoother). It is that attention to the little details that make the difference between good and world-class. He pointed out how the faster the digital sampling rate, the greater the overshoot distortion, so for those who think that makes digital sound more like analogue … He says early 78RPM shellac’s where cut direct from the orchestra and singer playing through extended horns direct to the cutting needle, no electronics. Despite the horrendous surface noise, the singing and instruments sound more real than anything today, thus less is more. He said his best (and most expensive) equipment has surprisingly few parts (albeit carefully selected parts).
As I said, my agenda is to learn how to build the very best. Unfortunately, others here have different agendas.

PQ, in another video, explained that he had a WE 16A in his small flat at some early point in his career!

Vis a vis digital, we can point out that PQ is not an engineer, and his assessment of "digital" was probably formed at a time when the technology was most certainly immature and inferior to what it is today. His point of view on sampling is probably obsolete today.

I gave examples of how older recordings can be brought back to life today with much higher fidelity than what was achieved previously, including, I believe, compared to some original LPs. The limit to what is achievable is probably simply the availability of original source material (since so much has been lost or has deteriorated).

Concerning "minimalism", digital also offers ways to go much further than what can be achieved with analog - unless of course you settle on listening to acoustic recordings of the early 1920s...

Nostalgia for the golden era of audio is fine, but it should not prevent us from being open to today's advances.

 

[hopkins]

AudioNote AN-e external crossover. Not exactly minimalistic...

 

[Rensselaer]

PQ, in another video, explained that he had a WE 16A in his small flat at some early point in his career!

Vis a vis digital, we can point out that PQ is not an engineer, and his assessment of "digital" was probably formed at a time when the technology was most certainly immature and inferior to what it is today. His point of view on sampling is probably obsolete today.

I gave examples of how older recordings can be brought back to life today with much higher fidelity than what was achieved previously, including, I believe, compared to some original LPs. The limit to what is achievable is probably simply the availability of original source material (since so much has been lost or has deteriorated).

Concerning "minimalism", digital also offers ways to go much further than what can be achieved with analog - unless of course you settle on listening to acoustic recordings of the early 1920s...

Nostalgia for the golden era of audio is fine, but it should not prevent us from being open to today's advances.

PQ says that life is analogue, and that to convert an analogue master tape signal into digital, then convert that bit stream back to analogue so it can be pressed to a record can no way sound more real to life than if the analogue signal from the master tape is pressed directly to vinyl without all that digital processing. Intuitively, that sounds correct.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

PQ says that life is analogue, and that to convert an analogue master tape signal into digital, then convert that bit stream back to analogue so it can be pressed to a record can no way sound more real to life than if the analogue signal from the master tape is pressed directly to vinyl without all that digital processing. Intuitively, that sounds correct.

cannot argue with the that.

 

[hopkins]

PQ says that life is analogue, and that to convert an analogue master tape signal into digital, then convert that bit stream back to analogue so it can be pressed to a record can no way sound more real to life than if the analogue signal from the master tape is pressed directly to vinyl without all that digital processing. Intuitively, that sounds correct.

It's an interesting way of putting things.

On the surface, it makes sense, because in so many cases that's what our ears tell us.

Setting aside the case you mention - LPs made from a digitally processed analog source - there are numerous examples where digital versions of albums are clearly inferior to the original analog versions. I'm not going to argue against that.

Saying "life is analog", however, really does not mean anything when it comes to audio reproduction.

I see no reason that 44000 samples per second, or sometimes much more, could not, with the right technology, provide just as complete an illusion as its analog counterpart.

 

[Rensselaer]

It's an interesting way of putting things.

On the surface, it makes sense, because in so many cases that's what our ears tell us.

Setting aside the case you mention - LPs made from a digitally processed analog source - there are numerous examples where digital versions of albums are clearly inferior to the original analog versions. I'm not going to argue against that.

Saying "life is analog", however, really does not mean anything when it comes to audio reproduction.

I see no reason that 44000 samples per second, or sometimes much more, could not, with the right technology, provide just as complete an illusion as its analog counterpart.

I get it. To you, intuitively, digital sampling rates of 44,000 bits a second SHOULD be able to sound as real as pure analogue. I don’t believe it does, or could do, regardless of “sampling rate”, because too much has happened to the original analogue signal in the process.

A model: one could take a drink of water from a mountain stream, or take a drink of what the water becomes after someone drank it, processed it and then expressed it … I don’t believe the latter would taste the same as what was found in the stream before processing.

 

[hopkins]

I get it. To you, intuitively, digital sampling rates of 44,000 bits a second SHOULD be able to sound as real as pure analogue. I don’t believe it does, or could do, regardless of “sampling rate”, because too much has happened to the original analogue signal in the process.

A model: one could take a drink of water from a mountain stream, or take a drink of what the water becomes after someone drank it, processed it and then expressed it … I don’t believe the latter would taste the same as what was found in the stream before processing.

I get your point of view as well, but you are never drinking water directly from the mountain stream. It's always processed, just differently.

 

[dcathro]

Vis a vis digital, we can point out that PQ is not an engineer, and his assessment of "digital" was probably formed at a time when the technology was most certainly immature and inferior to what it is today. His point of view on sampling is probably obsolete today.

AN have a team of engineers and invest a lot in research at the material, component and circuit level. After developing their top 4 box CD player, regarded by some as the best sounding digital source, they have spent the last 12 years trying to better it through work on their own CD drive experiments (belt and rim drive) and slow switched discrete DAC techology.

When CD replay was at it's peak you had huge companies like Philips, Sony, Analog Devices, BB, etc working on advancing digital replay, pouring millions of dollars into chip and drive technology. Today that has all disappeared. There are no dedicated optical drives being made or developed, and the chip technology is not developed for high end audio, but is low voltage stuff developed for other purposes such as phones.

If PQ is right, that more and more digital processing just makes it sound worse, then "mature" digital technology will not overtake vinyl.

 

[Rensselaer]

I get your point of view as well, but you are never drinking water directly from the mountain stream. It's always processed, just differently.

---

Fair point, attending the recording live is drinking from the stream, recording to tape then listening to that tape is putting the stream water in a glass and dinking it at stream side. Using the analogue tape to cut an analogue record is putting the stream water into a thermos and drinking it when you get home. Taking the analogue tape and converting that music into a digital computer language, then translating that computer bit stream into an analogue facsimile once home is the same as water from that stream flowing to reservoir, after sitting in reservoir (where skiing, swimming and fishing occurs) it is pumped to water treatment plant, from there through under road pipes to your tap where you pour a glass and take a drink. No difference, right?

 

[hopkins]

AN have a team of engineers and invest a lot in research at the material, component and circuit level.

Really? How many? Any patents?

After developing their top 4 box CD player, regarded by some as the best sounding digital source, they have spent the last 12 years trying to better it through work on their own CD drive experiments (belt and rim drive) and slow switched discrete DAC techology.

When CD replay was at it's peak you had huge companies like Philips, Sony, Analog Devices, BB, etc working on advancing digital replay, pouring millions of dollars into chip and drive technology. Today that has all disappeared. There are no dedicated optical drives being made or developed, and the chip technology is not developed for high end audio, but is low voltage stuff developed for other purposes such as phones.

If PQ is right, that more and more digital processing just makes it sound worse, then "mature" digital technology will not overtake vinyl.

CD replay is just one very small aspect of digital audio. CDs are pretty much obsolete today anyway (or will be soon).

 

[hopkins]

Fair point, attending the recording live is drinking from the stream, recording to tape then listening to that tape is putting the stream water in a glass and dinking it at stream side. Using the analogue tape to cut an analogue record is putting the stream water into a thermos and drinking it when you get home. Taking the analogue tape and converting that music into a digital computer language, then translating that computer bit stream into an analogue facsimile once home is the same as water from that stream flowing to reservoir, after sitting in reservoir (where skiing, swimming and fishing occurs) it is pumped to water treatment plant, from there through under road pipes to your tap where you pour a glass and take a drink. No difference, right?

Analogies can be useful but at some point you need to dive down into the actual process. The devil is in the details, and there are many ways that all this is done.

 

[sbo6]

Getting to the OP's question, with my latest incarnation of digital and analog, they are about the same MSRP and both can sound excellent IMO. Is one better? I don't think so. With the right source material they are about on par. I'd say my weak link for analog is my cartridge, and for my digital, maybe my music server (although it bested the Innuos Statement version 1).