Great article on "Analogue Warmth"

[Detlof]

D ultimately you have to listen to your system, so you must choose the type of sound you like, an artist/producer can use any distortion they like to create the music, but personally I want to hear that music as intended, therefore I choose to add as little distortion as possible of my own when I choose components to replay that performance.
Vb Keith.

I understand and respect that, but I am alas one of those nutcases who more often than not heartlly dislike what is being produced and yearn for the impossible, the sound of real insruments in their real space. That probably explains, that in Jazz for example, most of my software consists of takes in live events and not of those " in booths" jobs.
But enough already, I will now - if he lets me- join Tim with the popcorn.
.

 

[Purite Audio]

If you really want to hear real musicians in a real space, then you you will need to hire some musicians to come and play in your front room!
Have a great holiday.
Keith

 

[microstrip]

Happy Holidays to you all...

I have been an audiophile for most of my life. I started earlier than most people: Around 8 years old when I started paying attention , thanks to my dad, to the differences between components and how better reproduction takes us closer to the music. I am however lost in the current jargon and apologize to those who have taken the immense challenge to explain what they perceive. Allow me to say that , however I twist my mind, I can't fathom what "Timbral Density" or "Timbral Richness" mean... and in what ways digital is not able to provide all the goods. The better digital definitely sound different from analogue but they don't lack anything in the way they portray the musical event: They simply sound different and IMO better. I am willing to bet that even for those who staunchly favor analogue they will be unable to distinguish a properly digitalized LP from the original LP. I know that this won't change anybody's mind but many replies are pushing the idea that analogue is better than digital I think it is only fair for the other camp to voice an opinion.

Frantz,

Can you present an argument without bets and directly challenging people? IMHO permanent challenges about "properly digitalized" are just a way of perpetuating noise.

BTW, the concern of most people who love music is CD and LP - the formats where 99.XX% (replace X with the correct figures) exists. What do you say exactly about these two formats?

 

[microstrip]

The aviors were driven by a spectral system (dma 400) and MIT cables. The room was pretty small and not really a good room. The digital was acoustiplan, nothing high end.

By way of background, I was extremely resistant to vinyl, probably because sub consciously I wanted to keep myself away from such a ridiculous expense. However last year, I heard Marty's goldmund studio (which has a ridiculously low used price) wallop his emm labs going through an ADA conversion. Then this year, both Bill and I noticed that every single room on Munich sounded better on analog by a wide margin. The 15k Euro Thomas Schick was KO ing the Scarletti in the western electric room on every track. Then I heard a 2k TT, diy, on the WE 16a provide amazing tone and soundstage.

Granted, some TTs do nothing for me. But when they do, the soundstage, realism, liquidity, tone, especially brass and violins, make me overcome with an emotion that digital just cannot. Listening to live violins once a week has probably made me a stronger vinyl lover.

I have replaced a vivaldi with an oppo in a relatively high end system (top of the line radiho with soluution and Odin), and though I lost out on details, what I lost wasn't musically significant. All of the other digital sounds the same to me as the differences I hear are not musically significant to me

You will be fine with GG, or even with Big 7. It is a separate category that sits between digital and vinyl. Because of the DHT high level NOS tubes, once you like it, just like with vinyl, it is tough to like otherdigital. Obviously all statements made by me are imo.

Thanks for such an interesting post! It is great when people put flesh around the bones.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Merry X-mas Keith! What makes you think that we didn't? I did in fact, but I only chimed in here, because I dislike the term "analogue warmth" , because in a certain sense, though not so in this article, this term subtly discredits analogue and especially valves as coloured and digital not.
Cheers,
Detlof

Well, the article is a pretty comprehensive list of the things in a signal chain that create the differences between analog and digital sound. And they're all distortions. They are colorations. "Warmth" feels like a kinder, gentler term, and acknowledges that these distortions can be pleasing. It seems like a pretty flattering term to me. Choose "timbral richness" if you prefer, they'll still be colorations. If they make you feel closer to, more involved in the music, viva la colorations!

Tim

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz,

Can you present an argument without bets and directly challenging people? IMHO permanent challenges about "properly digitalized" are just a way of perpetuating noise.

BTW, the concern of most people who love music is CD and LP - the formats where 99.XX% (replace X with the correct figures) exists. What do you say exactly about these two formats?

Happy Holidays microstrip

What is a "permanent" challenge? How different is this of perpetuating noise as claiming that analogue has more "placeholder for whatever you feel safe a buzzword" than digital? challenge? Seriously? For the record one of the people here on WBF that masters things for a living stated the same. Try it for yourself, and report to us. I have.

 

[microstrip]

Well, the article is a pretty comprehensive list of the things in a signal chain that create the differences between analog and digital sound. And they're all distortions. They are colorations. "Warmth" feels like a kinder, gentler term, and acknowledges that these distortions can be pleasing. It seems like a pretty flattering term to me. Choose "timbral richness" if you prefer, they'll still be colorations. If they make you feel closer to, more involved in the music, viva la colorations!

Tim

All systems add distortion - sound engineers love distorting the original air waves. Should we conclude you prefer unpleasing distortions?

 

[microstrip]

Happy Holidays microstrip

What is a "permanent" challenge? How different is this of perpetuating noise as claiming that analogue has more "placeholder for whatever you feel safe a buzzword" than digital? challenge? Seriously? For the record one of the people here on WBF that masters things for a living stated the same. Try it for yourself, and report to us. I have.

I see you again prefer to forget about CD and prefer the safe clothing of digital ( redbook, HiRez, DSD and DXD in the same box).

I have tried it an reported - using my preferred vinyl source the Harry James DD Sheffield Lab in my system, at that time using the Aida's. I bought a Korg MR 2000s that is now idling and I would happily sell for half what I paid for. I could see that DSD was better sounding than PCM is this particular unit. I exchanged private correspondence with friendly and knowledgeable WBF members, one of them even kindly supplied me whit his digitized tracks of the some LP.

My humble, non-scientific and private opinion at that time - the original LP reproduction sounded better. BTW what are you meaning for "stated the same"?



Statistics and quality of posters.

 

[Detlof]

Well, the article is a pretty comprehensive list of the things in a signal chain that create the differences between analog and digital sound. And they're all distortions. They are colorations. "Warmth" feels like a kinder, gentler term, and acknowledges that these distortions can be pleasing. It seems like a pretty flattering term to me. Choose "timbral richness" if you prefer, they'll still be colorations. If they make you feel closer to, more involved in the music, viva la colorations!

Tim

Wished you were wrong, but you ain't. Not so in "real music " though, played out in the open.......

(i once, long after midnight, by the light of the full moon, on cathedral square in Siena, heard a lute player with renaissance music. I still have that in my ear. Each tone as clear as a raiin drop lit by the sun, each sequence as a spring swelling up and down. We were alone, he did not see me, I hid in the shadows transfixed. )

 

[FrantzM]

I see you again prefer to forget about CD and prefer the safe clothing of digital ( redbook, HiRez, DSD and DXD in the same box).

I have tried it an reported - using my preferred vinyl source the Harry James DD Sheffield Lab in my system, at that time using the Aida's. I bought a Korg MR 2000s that is now idling and I would happily sell for half what I paid for. I could see that DSD was better sounding than PCM is this particular unit. I exchanged private correspondence with friendly and knowledgeable WBF members, one of them even kindly supplied me whit his digitized tracks of the some LP.

My humble, non-scientific and private opinion at that time - the original LP reproduction sounded better. BTW what are you meaning for "stated the same"?



Statistics and quality of posters.

Your preferences and that is OK... Cheers! Happy Holidays.

 

[Groucho]

Don't push this one. There are people here who will swear cassettes are "better" than digital.

Noted. My main point is that if nothing can be classified as "better" (I accept that it may not be an unqualified "better") then we cannot make progress. We also need to understand why something is "better" or not.

 

[microstrip]

Your preferences and that is OK... Cheers! Happy Holidays.

Yes, my preferences. Happy Holidays - I hope that next year we will learn from your preferences from your home practice, not only the theories behind them! Happy Holydays.

 

[microstrip]

Don't push this one. There are people here who will swear cassettes are "better" than digital.

Tim

Tim,

We must remember that a few of those were brave enough to make this statement when everyone, including me, were embarking in the first poorly sounding CD digital players and CD recordings, claiming we had reached perfect sound forever. Most probably they were so traumatized by those early days that today they can not accept digital in any way!

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I LOVE Cassettes! I wish I never would have dumped mine.

 

[TBone]

compared to the warmth of LP, CD sounds cold & screachy within my system ...

 

[FrantzM]

Yes, my preferences. Happy Holidays - I hope that next year we will learn from your preferences from your home practice, not only the theories behind them! Happy Holydays.

Simple

I prefer Digital to analog and frankly do not care about format. It has come to me , these past few years that we audiophiles, do let our love for the reproduction of music get in the way of enjoying the Music itself. This came to me when I noticed that I had listened only one time to an album by an artist I like: Erykah Badu , Ameryka PArt II because it is too compressed ) Oh God it is! .. Meanwhile my kids were enjoying it though their iPod buds... SO I almost force myself to concentrate on the music first whatever the medium , even if it is mp3 which BTW i find quite enjoyable on 320 Kb/s.

I have been listening for too long (5 years) on headphones and am about to embark in a speaker-based system in a less than adequate room . Too small for the speakers I favor and with dimensions imposed by circumstances (for now)... So I will go for smaller speakers and help them if possible with subs. In the process of acquiring a Devialet 200. Pondering on my next move in term of speakers and subs in that room. I will retain some of the Headphones, The Hifiman , the Audeze and the Stax will remain. All DACs and almost all headphone amplifiers are to go ...
So , no... No theory. Pragmatism.

 

[TBone]

then you are an idiot ...

apparently so; having much difficulty loading my CDP for comparison ...

 

[bonzo75]

Simple

I prefer Digital to analog and frankly do not care about format. It has come to me , these past few years that we audiophiles, do let our love for the reproduction of music get in the way of enjoying the Music itself. This came to me when I noticed that I had listened only one time to an album by an artist I like: Erykah Badu , Ameryka PArt II because it is too compressed ) Oh God it is! .. Meanwhile my kids were enjoying it though their iPod buds... SO I almost force myself to concentrate on the music first whatever the medium , even if it is mp3 which BTW i find quite enjoyable on 320 Kb/s.

I have been listening for too long (5 years) on headphones and am about to embark in a speaker-based system in a less than adequate room . Too small for the speakers I favor and with dimensions imposed by circumstances (for now)... So I will go for smaller speakers and help them if possible with subs. In the process of acquiring a Devialet 200. Pondering on my next move in term of speakers and subs in that room. I will retain some of the Headphones, The Hifiman , the Audeze and the Stax will remain. All DACs and almost all headphone amplifiers are to go ...
So , no... No theory. Pragmatism.

This is a different hobby. If you want to enjoy listening to and discovering music there is no better alternative than digital. However analog sounds better, so I plan to have it for my favorite music, while digital will be for pragmatism and easy listening. But if that were the case, ideally I should have an oppo with funds reserved for TT, but then upgraditus kicks in. I am under no illusion that I pursue this audiophile hobby from a different perspective than I pursue my music hobby

 

[Purite Audio]

This is a different hobby. If you want to enjoy listening to and discovering music there is no better alternative than digital. However analog sounds better, so I plan to have it for my favorite music, while digital will be for pragmatism and easy listening. But if that were the case, ideally I should have an oppo with funds reserved for TT, but then upgraditus kicks in. I am under no illusion that I pursue this audiophile hobby from a different perspective than I pursue my music hobby

If you don't have any vinyl, you might be better with analogue tape, I am not sure just how much music is available, and the machines have to be regularly calibrated, but technically they are better, greater dynamic range than vinyl, perhaps thirteen bit with a correctly calibrated machine.
Keith.

 

[Al M.]

I appreciate the positive responses to my post towards the beginning of the thread and am glad that for a large part it was able to steer the discussion into a more fruitful direction than the old and tired warm vs. cold debate.