Paul McGowan Prefers Digital
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
. . . ya gotta do some digital these days
I agree with this! That’s why I have Spotify!
I am happy for y’all!
There is no way to prove you wrong (about sound quality). It is more than enough for me to know myself that you are wrong.
Was it you or was it somebody else who posted correctly on this thread that there is no “right” or “wrong” in this hobby, only subjective preference?
But if you really want to save money buy a Mara or a Sonorus or a UHA open reel tape machine and get better sound quality!
It might have been me who said that. In the end we're all lucky to be at a point in time where digital and analog sources are improving at rapid rates and music is available globally 24 x 7 in multiple formats and in stellar quality - what a time to be alive! It's all good...
Just about the worst way to experience digital, possibly...
Very good point made. I do not own an analog source but I am always delighted when I hear my friends' systems with analog sources. But the real question will be for me, which sounds "generally" better "when set up correctly" with a budget from 3K to 20K USD? But I believe majority of this forum would want to know the answer for this one since only a handful few can buy a 100K turntable or a Vivaldi stack. I don't know the answer. I bought the best digital I could afford. dCS Rossini + Clock and happy with it. I don't know if I will be happier with a similar priced analog source because I don't have the money to try and see it myself at the moment.
With love and respect.
This notion of analogue V digital isn’t absolutely straight forward to assess completely. I still come back to the idea that there are two essential criteria to do with quality that are not at all directly correlated. One is what is sonically best and the other is what is musically wholly engaging and that one doesn’t necessarily guarantee the other.
I’d suggest when talking best we as a group more tend to focus on the sonic comparison and so for me that would be analogue tape first and foremost. So here sonic performance for me is more of a graded outcome with the best being the best and anything less being less. Just one winner.
But with wholly musical engagement there is for me just a tipping point that is either achieved or not achieved and so is more of an achieved competency. So there can indeed be many winners.
Not to say that musical engagement is the poor dumb cousin of sonic performance (for me quite the opposite hierarchy really) but whole musical achievement can be achieved in sometimes relatively simple gear still with sonic faults and this point of undistracted and whole musical engagement will vary from listener to listener based upon their individual threshold to just let go of everything else and submit to the music. For many musicians this point seems to be a relatively easily achieved state but for many audiophiles the fascination with sonic supremacy may therefore be our musical archilles heel. Which is ironic as for many of us the essential love of music is the alpha and begins as paramount but then for some of us the beauty is more just in the soundfield.
So while the best analogue may still hold the higher end of the sonic plateau not all of this gear may then not still be automatically necessarily wholly musically engaging even if rather sonically wonderous. Once something is wholly musically engaging then it is by definition every bit as musically engaging regardless of its digitality or analogedness.
Which is the great evener of accessibility as some of this wholly musically engaging gear is relatively inexpensive. I now have two sets of speakers and an amp and a source that all achieve this whole musical engagement without any distraction. Are they sonically the best... well no... but they do sound great still and when the music has 100% of you who really cares if there is anything better anywhere else or indeed if it’s digital or analogue.
I’d suggest when talking best we as a group more tend to focus on the sonic comparison and so for me that would be analogue tape first and foremost. So here sonic performance for me is more of a graded outcome with the best being the best and anything less being less. Just one winner.
But with wholly musical engagement there is for me just a tipping point that is either achieved or not achieved and so is more of an achieved competency. So there can indeed be many winners.
Not to say that musical engagement is the poor dumb cousin of sonic performance (for me quite the opposite hierarchy really) but whole musical achievement can be achieved in sometimes relatively simple gear still with sonic faults and this point of undistracted and whole musical engagement will vary from listener to listener based upon their individual threshold to just let go of everything else and submit to the music. For many musicians this point seems to be a relatively easily achieved state but for many audiophiles the fascination with sonic supremacy may therefore be our musical archilles heel. Which is ironic as for many of us the essential love of music is the alpha and begins as paramount but then for some of us the beauty is more just in the soundfield.
So while the best analogue may still hold the higher end of the sonic plateau not all of this gear may then not still be automatically necessarily wholly musically engaging even if rather sonically wonderous. Once something is wholly musically engaging then it is by definition every bit as musically engaging regardless of its digitality or analogedness.
Which is the great evener of accessibility as some of this wholly musically engaging gear is relatively inexpensive. I now have two sets of speakers and an amp and a source that all achieve this whole musical engagement without any distraction. Are they sonically the best... well no... but they do sound great still and when the music has 100% of you who really cares if there is anything better anywhere else or indeed if it’s digital or analogue.
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I wonder about that. People have their preferences and points of view. I respect that. A friend and I each have one turntable that we have had for a number of years. In that time, he and a third friend have owned six or more DACs between them and their search continues. It's not about cost for me, it is about satisfaction.
Music matters a lot, Bob. But this hobby is often about more than just the music. It can also be about learning about sound, learning about gear, traveling to hear other peoples systems and make new friends, ask Kedar. It is about chatting on forums to share your views or learn from others. It is about chasing goals and improving our systems. It is about making your own gear, making value choices to get a better musical experience than you thought possible given your budget. It is about format wars.
Love for music is what we share in common, but the delivery of that music, and how we think of that, is also a big part of this hobby. It is all deeply personal.
Peter, there are parallels in the world of home cinema projectors. Until it broke down a year ago, I had been running the same CRT projector for well over a decade, the Barco 1209S, with a single change of 9" tubes. Performance in many ways superior to all the digital projectors I'd auditioned, only beaten by $75k digitals.
In the decade I'd run my crt, JVC, Sony etc has run thru well over a dozen so-called updated/superior models, I know videophiles who swap out their digital projectors on a 12-18 month basis.
Plenty of parallels w flavour of the month/updated DACs.
In the decade I'd run my crt, JVC, Sony etc has run thru well over a dozen so-called updated/superior models, I know videophiles who swap out their digital projectors on a 12-18 month basis.
Plenty of parallels w flavour of the month/updated DACs.
Peter, I would bet a likely reason your friends turned over their DACs more than TT setups is because digital is improving faster (and has more room to improve) versus analog. It may have nothing to do with satisfaction if that's what you are implying.
But it's not really necessary to keep chasing the digital unicorn.
My Eera cdp from 2009 remains a totally convincing experience. If only it had a Digital In, I'd use it alongside cdp duties as a dac for future streaming option.
There is no need to chase the dragon.
My Eera cdp from 2009 remains a totally convincing experience. If only it had a Digital In, I'd use it alongside cdp duties as a dac for future streaming option.
There is no need to chase the dragon.
For me it's a bit of both. But yes, digital is improving fast, faster than analog I think, too.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
RIM SHOT! you are kidding right?
If I ripped analog because I had a garrard changer with a pickering cartridge I would get drawn and quartered here.
Not speaking for Ron per se but I could have written “...that is why I have an iPad, YouTube and headphones” - not saying that the latter is any representation of remotely good digital but that is how I personally consume my digital nowadays. Not saying it is the correct path but my critical hifi listening is limited and I need a source that immediately disconnects me from reality and that is achieved better on analogue (hence why I sold my dac etc). I love spending time listening to music on iPad/YouTube though - just different consumption.
The Q for Ron is, if he could get his limited repertoire wholly on 15ips tape, would he give up on lps as much as he's done w digital?
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