Excerpt from Tim de Paravicini regarding the state of digital

[MylesBAstor]

Unfortunately the ambience and air is present on the work tape. So much for that theory.

 

[esldude]

Tomelex

Read your comment about CD .. It's all good... One inquiry: Have you ever heard a CD recording of an LP? Do you think you would be able to separate the two? Reliably? By the way this inquiry is not to dispute your preference. One likes what one likes ...
On my side it seemed to me the last time I conducted a serious comparison that the LP was as you say more realistic above 8 KHz... I did however find many CD on the Burmester system more satisfying than their (few and rare) LP counterparts... (Basis, Graham, Koetsu). The Mercury CDs in particular sounded very good on equal (different) but sometimes "better" than what I got from the few LPs I had... For the better piano recordings (Nojima plays Lizt Reference Recordings or the Stereophile Rhapsody by Hyperion Knight) and even for voices the CDs seemed better in term of verisimilitude of reproduction and when the LP was available as in the case of the RR Nojima...were IMO superior
YMMV but CDs on the better DAC are far from "thin" IMO ...
The sense of decay was a fault of earlier DACs up to the early 90's, the better contemporary DACs don't seem to have that problem...

This experience of recording LP's digitally on a high quality LP rig was compelling to me. At 88 or 96khz I don't know I would say it is completely perfect. But maybe, close enough it is hard to say yes or no. Which leads me to think what people like about LP is an addition or coloration or some preferred sonic signature. And nothing wrong with that. LP's can and do sound great and are musically satisfying. But the sound of digital being different from that seems not to be due to an inability to pass the info that an LP does. LP playback has some character not present in a digital only recording.

 

[microstrip]

Interesting, I don't know how the Ensemble Reference speakers sound with Landmark stands which were introduced after I bought them in 1991. I have stands from De Jong Systems, and in my set-up the speakers don't sound particularly airy -- but just right, if anything, rather on the earthy side. It does depend on the cables as well -- my Monster Sigma cables give a much less bright balance (comparable to MIT cables that I had recently for auditioning) than Ensemble's own cables from that time, for example. I found the Magico S1 that I auditioned recently to be more airy sounding (on those MIT cables). I found that speaker inferior, not necessarily because of the airiness (which just gave a different perspective on possible live sound), but for other reasons.



The reason why the speakers sound better with CD apparently has to do with subsonic trouble on LP. From Dick Olsher's review:

The specter of subsonics
While the lower mids always sounded smooth, I became aware over time of grain and roughness through the upper mids and lower treble—but only with LP program material. Violin overtones lost sweetness and smoothness. A sense of strain would creep in that was not volume-related. The Ensemble PA-1 appeared to be performing better with digital than with LP program material. I decided to investigate this discrepancy using the Wilson Audio recording of the Beethoven Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op.96. David Abel's Guarnerius on the LP version of this was not as pure-sounding as CD. By comparison, the LP was beset with noticeable levels of grain and roughness riding along with the violin's harmonic envelope. The CD also managed to develop a better sense of space, the Guarnerius occupying an almost palpable space within the soundstage. What! CDs sounding better than LPs? I can't have that.

Naturally, I began to strongly suspect subsonic energy as the culprit. With the grille off, it was easy to see the wild gyrations executed by the woofer; the introduction of FM and IM distortion became real possibilities. The fact that the PA-1's passive radiator is tuned high means that it is vulnerable to subsonic energy. The woofer is on its own in the deep bass and below, without any damping from the air spring of the cabinet.

I decided to test this theory. Not having a subsonic filter handy, I introduced the Threshold PCX crossover into the chain, using only the high-pass feed above 75Hz. The deep bass and subsonic frequencies were attenuated at the rate of 18dB/octave below 75Hz. This really did it—the transformation was dramatic. The Guarnerius began to sing sweetly and with excellent focus. All grain and strain were removed from the upper mids. At last, the proper balance was restored: the LP sounded better than its CD equivalent. I missed the lost deep-bass information; there wasn't that much to begin with, but when you have none at all you notice it. But the accrued benefits were so great through the upper mids that I could not imagine listening to the PA-1 full-range again

Apparently, the designer is aware of his speaker's subsonic vulnerability, because in the Owner's Manual the use of a subsonic filter is recommended as it "banishes all those non-musical signals (such as record warps) below the lowest musical spectrum, thus allowing a very clean bass." To be fair, I should point out that most minimonitors, and especially vented designs, would greatly benefit from the use of a subsonic filter. Properly executed, the real benefits of such a filter should greatly outweigh the potential disadvantages of introducing another active device into the signal path.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/pawelensemble-pa-1-amp-reference-loudspeakers-page-4

As far as I remember the stands improved considerably the performance of the speaker, helping them to create a large and deep soundstage. They were really inert - I think they were built using a special composite. Nice to learn about the need of the bass filter - I tried matching them with a REL subwoofer but had no success. Some tube amplifiers have an intrinsic subsonic filter, but IMHO the Reference sounded much better with SS. Unfortunately I never saw a filter that did not affect sound quality - even the crossover of the Wilson Watchdog added some coloration.

 

[microstrip]

Thanks, Ethan. Your reply with the link to your article was very helpful. I believe I now understand better the phenomenon of artificial 'air' on vinyl.

The more general lesson seems to be, if the listener is not producing recordings like yourself, check the veracity of audio reproduction by comparison with the real (unamplified) thing, not by comparing formats or components amongst one another. One item that appears to sound "better" or "nicer" than another may actually sound worse -- less real -- in absolute terms.

That lesson appears to have been disregarded for a large part during the 'analog vs. digital' wars -- and I am afraid, also by professional (or "professional"?) audio reviewers.

Al. M.

At the risk of disagreeing with you I must say that most of my LPs of string quartets sound much more real to me than the equivalent CDs. I am, for example referring to the Quartetto Italiano playing Mozart Quartets (Philips). Surely if some one considers that some ticks and small coloration are more relevant than the feeling of "being there", the fine gradation of decays and feeling the complicity between players the opinion will be reversed. Surely all this needs a SOTA turntable and RIAA phono preamplifier. The way we listen also changes our priorities - I do not consider myself an analytical listener.

 

[Al M.]

I tried matching them with a REL subwoofer but had no success.

[...]

Unfortunately I never saw a filter that did not affect sound quality - even the crossover of the Wilson Watchdog added some coloration.

That is why I never wanted to have a subwoofer until I came across the REL concept (now apparently widely adopted) of having the subwoofer in parallel to the main speakers, without crossover from these. In my system, the REL subwoofer integrates flawlessly with the speakers, they sound together with a single integrated voice. You said you had no success with a REL -- how did that sound?