The biggest difference I hear between digital and analog

[fas42]

You mean that noise? FWIW, the current tape craze confuses me a bit because, while it does have it's share of noise, it's very different, and doesn't sound like a big, empty room the way surface noise on an LP does.

Tim, to me the big clue about tape was one of the points in that article I linked to: R2R has a certain level of flutter which adds creaminess, a type of subtle vibrato to the sound; yet another sound "effect" ...

Frank

 

[JackD201]

You mean that noise? FWIW, the current tape craze confuses me a bit because, while it does have it's share of noise, it's very different, and doesn't sound like a big, empty room the way surface noise on an LP does.

I wonder...if you have tinnitus, does digital sound analog?

Tim

Choose your poison, Mr.Duran. LOL.

 

[fas42]

Just to clarify, Jack, can you hear a genuine, low level venue ambient noise, as recorded, on your current digital setup?

Frank

 

[JackD201]

Yup.

 

[Soundproof]

Very interesting discussion. Similarly to Jack, I have spent time creating soundtracks for film and video, and have had countless hours of exposure to the effects of small gradations in variables - with the sound going from "plastered on top of the image" to "enhancing the believability of the experience".

Jack writes:
Interestingly enough, groove noise and groove echo as well as tape hiss are very, very similar to room tone. Enough to set a self contained set of boundaries, fill in dead gaps in space. Attempts to actually minimize groove noise like 80's Japanese Press JVC LPs and the use of ever smaller stylus profiles (think Clearaudio carts up to about 2 years ago) have been criticized as sounding clinical which actually should be understood as not too detailed but rather "too clean" or "too precise". One can never have too much detail after all, it just has to be natural sounding detail because in real life we aren't in anechoic chambers.

The other day I switched tonearms on my preferred turntable. I immediately heard that it picked up a lot more noise than the previous one, which was dead silent in comparison, as long as the vinyl was relatively silent (As on Audio Lab Records releases). But I liked what I heard from the new tonearm, in spite of the noise, and after checking set-up and satisfying myself that the noisefloor was a feature, I just moved the speakers back to their secondary optimal position in my listening room. When I drop the needle into the groove the groove-noise coming from the speakers seems way too loud, but when I sit in the listening chair, it's as if it disappears into the room, and I'm left with music hanging in the air.

A personal gripe of mine is that digital has become too clean, as a consequence of microphones that go into ultrasound, improved recording devices, deadened recording studios, enhanced post-processes and higher resolutions, heard through components that have impressive SNRs. And I think this may explain the rebirth of analog we're seeing now. (Recordings such as those of 2L show that it's still possible to use digital in an engaging way, but they are insisting upon capturing the musician/room interaction in near-Live conditions, and passing that on with as little processing as possible. Worth thinking about).

 

[JackD201]

I sit in the listening chair, it's as if it disappears into the room, and I'm left with music hanging in the air.

Exactly!

 

[microstrip]

(...) So I've put myself in a pickle. I've just said that Analog adds stuff that makes it sound better. Yes I did. It can be argued that because of this, analog is not accurate. Before the war begins just let me remind the digital camp about what happens inside our DACs. Noise is added on purpose too. So the argument goes both ways. One thing for sure is, noise done right is not a bad thing. Not bad at all.

Noise is your friend

Jack,
Very interesting notes, but it does not explain why a digital copy of an analogue tape does not keep all the "good" properties of it.

The argument of that the artifacts of analogue are responsible for the preference also suffer from the fact that when we improve technically the reading system, subjectively reducing the artifacts you refer, the sound quality greatly improves and the gap between analogue and digital widens again.

When we debate "analog" and "digital", we are debating implementations according to our experience, not the concept per se, and limited by the existing recordings. A few times I have listened to digital sounding so good that my heart balanced between the two media. Unhappily, it was not systematic, and very dependent on system and recording. Recent developments in electronics for analogue have improved considerably the analogue replay of vinyl.

I spend considerable more time listening to CDs than to analogue - and would love if my digital at its best would sound better or equal than my vinyl at its best - although digitizing 2000 LPs would take some time.

I have told it before - IMHO it is a question of time. Sound reproduction is essentially fooling us. Sooner or later the engineers will find a way of doing it using also digital. Some people pretend they already do it, that digital sounds better than analogue ever did, I hope they do not stop the future developments pretending everything is already perfect.

BTW, dither was added only in old digital systems - high bit systems are self dithering, as the resolution is much higher than the electrical noise (I am sure WBF experts will correct me if it is not true).

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I have told it before - IMHO it is a question of time. Sound reproduction is essentially fooling us. Sooner or later the engineers will find a way of doing it using also digital.

I don't think they will, because even in its resurgence, analog lovers are an insignificant market compared to the millions of music lovers who haven't heard analog in years, if they've heard it at all. Could a audiophile engineer come up with a circuit that carefully places and analog-like noise floor below your digital listening experience? Sure. I'm surprised that it hasn't been done. But it will never be broadly accepted in the audiophile community, because the idea that the difference is noise will never be accepted.

Hard to get past that one.

Tim

 

[MylesBAstor]

Some due to the algorithms used and some from the output stage design choices.

I think that sometimes we focus too much on the digital A/D side and lose track of the quality of the DAC's analog stage. How much of this loss of ambient information is traceable to the use of a solid-state line stage vs a tube based DAC. After all, properly executed tube designs to have a better ability to recreate the sense of space than solid-state designs in my experience. In fact, I've found that the DACs that I've preferred and can listen to over the long run, tend be of the tube oriented kind eg. Altis, Audio Note, Zanden, etc. It does seem, however, that the number of DACs using tube line stages is dwindling.

 

[microstrip]

I don't think they will, because even in its resurgence, analog lovers are an insignificant market compared to the millions of music lovers who haven't heard analog in years, if they've heard it at all. Could a audiophile engineer come up with a circuit that carefully places and analog-like noise floor below your digital listening experience? Sure. I'm surprised that it hasn't been done. But it will never be broadly accepted in the audiophile community, because the idea that the difference is noise will never be accepted.

Hard to get past that one.

Tim

Tim,

Your answer exposes the danger of your accuracy argument in the long term - you are relying only in the existing recording as a reference. Happily sound reproductions aims of something else, and humans in the long term prefer the best quality, independently of being analog or digital. And the best quality is defined by the real.

It seems yo misread me about the noise - if it was only noise, no extra work would be needed as current digital is almost noise free compared to analog - we agree on it.

 

[fas42]

A few times I have listened to digital sounding so good that my heart balanced between the two media. Unhappily, it was not systematic, and very dependent on system and recording.

This pinpoints the "problem" as well as anything so far. Digital, in spite of what many may think of it, is a precision instrument; and a precision instrument if not always treated as such will come back to bite you. Sloppiness which you can get away with analogue won't be tolerated, by your ears that is; so an easy "solution" is to add tubes, inserting some wobble room, and dumping some of the precision.

The way to solve digital's "problems" is very easy; it's to be more precise with everything around it, not less precise. But we humans tend to be a bit lazy: it's all too hard, let someone else solve it, package up a nice, convenient, all-in-one solution. But so far such an easy, off the shelf answer has not been forthcoming, at least for a high percentage of people ...

Frank

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I am coming to a point where I may drop out for a while. The dust will settle eventually... I have not read all the posts here. I have however read the very interesting theories advanced by Jack and congratulate him for such thoughtful findings. I will however challenge a few of them in another post.

@Jack

I don't have your recording background or experiences. I however share your enthusiasm about music and its reproduction in our homes. I also find your objective/subjective balance very refreshing. Yours is not a "Digital is simply inferior to analogue" point of view rather than trying to find what makes you and others more favorable to analog than digital. I will dismiss at the outset those who claim very loudly, I am quoting you here Micro

digital copy of an analogue tape does not keep all the "good" properties of it.

... When the biasing factors are removed more than one have been fooled and I would think you would have been too. Ask Gary L . Koh here...

Tim,

Your answer exposes the danger of your accuracy argument in the long term - you are relying only in the existing recording as a reference. Happily sound reproductions aims of something else, and humans in the long term prefer the best quality, independently of being analog or digital. And the best quality is defined by the real.

It seems yo misread me about the noise - if it was only noise, no extra work would be needed as current digital is almost noise free compared to analog - we agree on it.

I do have a problem there micro with such a statement. Sound reproduction aims at what if not reproducing what is in the record. How in the world does a system knows what to add in the sound to make it "real"... If the best quality is defined by the "real" .. How do you define the "real" then? What is real ? What is on the record? What happened then? What you would like to hear even if it is not on the record? You would not for example add some DSP effects to the record reproduction? Yet some of them may make it closer to what it might have been ... We don't know.. You don't know .. SO what does become The reference .. An idea of what the recording should be? It is as if reading a novel amnd deciding that youdon't like the behavior of the caracter thus trying to chage ot and claiming that it makes it more "real" I would think.. Have we gotten to the point where he system knows what to add to the recording to make it more .."real".
And that is what happens when we drop he qualifiers so generously furnished by texting .. It would help to use a litle more often those wonderful, sober and modest qulaifying expressions/acronyms: "IMO", "IMHO" I would even take an "IME". I am afraid of this wonderful site becoming a large echo chamber where proclamations just go unchallenged and become the voice of the WBF .. I find that too often the "analog is superior " claims go unchallenged .. The tape creamed the CD ... Oh Yea.. How did you test? What did you use as material and equipment to come with such claims? Same mastering components similar in performance ... you knew ? You knew??????.. I have add the opportunity to listen to tapes and to Lp and to CD and they all sound different and depending of the material source and mastering, i have my preferences ( I prefer for example the CD and SACD of the Mercury discs over the original LPs of which I had a few, I have ALL THE CD however) I don't find the Lyrita CDs as good as the original LPs, I would have dreamed of owning these Master Tapes. I have my preferences.

I will conclude by stating that in many tests , even the most ardent analog fans would be confused by a good digital copy of an analog anything, from Master Tape to Vinyl, once knowledge is removed. I would ask many analog lover to just consider for this little while the power of our minds in our preferences .. Once we know.. Our brains fill a lot of blanks ... Once we know and that is not IME, IMO, IMHO it is repeatable ... There are differences for sure and once trained to discern them it becomes easier .. The thing few are trained to hear those differences and most would have been fooled ..Fact ... Enough for now later maybe ..

Go Giants.. Eli MVP !!!

 

[JackD201]

@Frank - You are over simplifying. Room tone isn't just slapping on just any noise you know. It's designed. Not all noise is bad, which is all I was putting forward.

@Micro - Those using analog before DRC would beg to differ, and I would agree with them to a high degree. Those Tact, Lyngdorf and DEQX boxes are pretty transparent. That they have some of their own signatures is another story. They don't scrub off surface noise or groove echo. I also included examples where one could go too far (some Japanese and actually some German pressings too as well as some carts) that are so scrubbed they tend to sound more like bad digital.

@Myles - I agree, personally I think the output stage has always had a larger impact on digital sound. So many players and DACs that sound so little alike using the same chips makes me believe this. This is what makes me scratch my head when people insist Digital is totally accurate. There's no actual benchmark product in existence albeit the brand has somehow worked it's way into the myth by simply naming themselves such and being a good performer for not much scratch.

@Tim - you too doth presume too much. There's a lot of analog modeling and emulation that's been going on for a long time. The list of manufacturers using proprietary noise algorithms is a long one. They may not be layering noise but are injecting it in doses that make the waveforms more analogous. Then there are filters........ Let's not forget that while the Nyquist math is currently unimpeachable, implementation is far from it. There goes the pick your poison line again. It's as true of digital as it is analog. We can argue until we're all blue in the face but the fact of the matter is full potential has yet to be reached by either. Add matching, set up and calibration into the mix and you will see some analog rigs trumped by digital and some digital rigs trumped by analog ones depending on circumstance. In my case, my opinion is that, my analog rig trumps my digital rigs most of the time. It's more dependent on the condition of the LP itself. Almost all my LPs are NM/NM so surface noise isn't obtrusive at all once the music plays. It helps that I listen from 10 to 11 feet away though. Air one heck of an absorber of energy. I can hear it very well when I put my ear to the drivers but I'm not Frank. LOL. Sorry Frank, I couldn't resist. Add to that that my CD collection is mediocre. It was the mediocrity of CDs available over here (I've been collecting CDs since HS senior year, that would be 1988) that actually led me to go back and give analog another go around. It's only very recently that digital has really come a knockin in my case (better hardware AND software), not that I haven't been trying really hard. That DAC and player graveyard of mine is testament to that.

@Frantz - Merci mon ami

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

Your answer exposes the danger of your accuracy argument in the long term - you are relying only in the existing recording as a reference. Happily sound reproductions aims of something else, and humans in the long term prefer the best quality, independently of being analog or digital. And the best quality is defined by the real.

It seems yo misread me about the noise - if it was only noise, no extra work would be needed as current digital is almost noise free compared to analog - we agree on it.

As is often the case in these discussions, Micro, I can only answer with what I've said many times before:

1) The only reality your media and your playback system knows is the recording. It has no other model of the real instruments or the space they were recorded in to examine and reform into its output, so anything it adds is distortion. Are we counting on distortions, over which we have no control, to accidentally make our listening experience more real? I don't think so. More appealing? Perhaps. More familiar/comforting? I think we have a winner...

2) I hear the "sound of room ambience" that Jack refers to in the analog noise floor; I've mentioned it before. Clearly it can create a very pleasing effect for some folks. Not my preference, but enjoy it, I'll make no attempt to spoil your fun unless you start substituting descriptors for accuracy (real, natural, life-like, truth, yadayada...) in a thinly-veiled attempt to position a preference as objectively superior to mine. That's when I'm likely to repeat this often-repeated arguement...

3) I know "real," on a level that very few here can relate to. Friday night, I spent a few hours in a room with 2 guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, listening to real instruments; much was amplified, but in that case, that amplification is part of the instruments, part of the reality. The only thing that went through the PA was vocals. Saturday afternoon, I spent a few hours in a different room, with 2 acoustic guitars, a mandolin, an accordian and 2 voices. Nothing was amplified. It doesn't get any more real than that.

And I prefer a well-recorded, well-mastered 16/44.1 file to vinyl. Why? Because it sounds more like those experiences, those instruments.

MHO. YMMV.

Tim

 

[Ronm1]

My 2cents from a few years ago and nothing has changed.

Like most, vinyl was it when I got into audio. Then in the 80's along came these disc's, got into them and overtime they replaced my buying/listening habits. A few years ago the resurgence had me re-take up the paradigm, rebuilt my TT, borrowed a few others, came to the conclusion that its just not for me. My h/w has improved somewhat since the early days, mostly thru judicious use of how power/gnd's, are dealt with, this has created IMHO a very low noise, distortion free environment, without spending beaucoup bucks to get their, but I digress. Adding TT's just defeated what I was striving for, sure at times it was good, but I had to take on the bad and their was too much of that for my book. Never noticed all that before, I suspect the noise floor is now so low it just jumps out. The only blackness with vinyl was the color of the media. The borrowed tt's were returned and my own is back in storage with around 2500 lp's. Don't plan to get rid of them, though cuz one never knows. At this time its not for me. I'll use an old computer tape term, too much crap in the gap. I have gone to colleagues setups and can hear it, they hear nothing, wish I wasn't so focused on it, but it is what it is.... I cannot seem to ignore it, it drives me nuts.
All IMHO, of course. Blackness then music, nothing else will do. IMHO trying to push a little bit of noise as good is like saying a little bit of cancer is good.

 

[JackD201]

Tim,

The only problem I have with number one is that it is a theoretical perfection. Let's push this theory to it's limits. Let's say all your electronics does a simple sine wave perfectly in a null test but measured from the listening area it is nothing but. Now what if your electronics were all screwed up but the measurement at the listening area was a perfect replica of the simple sine wave. Which would you choose?

I have no argument with No.s 2 and 3. Even your live listening is near field Our mileage really does vary!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

@Tim - you too doth presume too much. There's a lot of analog modeling and emulation that's been going on for a long time. The list of manufacturers using proprietary noise algorithms is a long one. They may not be layering noise but are injecting it in doses that make the waveforms more analogous. Then there are filters........ Let's not forget that while the Nyquist math is currently unimpeachable, implementation is far from it. There goes the pick your poison line again. It's as true of digital as it is analog. We can argue until we're all blue in the face but the fact of the matter is full potential has yet to be reached by either. Add matching, set up and calibration into the mix and you will see some analog rigs trumped by digital and some digital rigs trumped by analog ones depending on circumstance. In my case, my opinion is that, my analog rig trumps my digital rigs most of the time. It's more dependent on the condition of the LP itself. Almost all my LPs are NM/NM so surface noise isn't obtrusive at all once the music plays. It helps that I listen from 10 to 11 feet away though. Air one heck of an absorber of energy. I can hear it very well when I put my ear to the drivers but I'm not Frank. LOL. Sorry Frank, I couldn't resist. Add to that that my CD collection is mediocre. It was the mediocrity of CDs available over here (I've been collecting CDs since HS senior year, that would be 1988) that actually led me to go back and give analog another go around. It's only very recently that digital has really come a knockin in my case (better hardware AND software), not that I haven't been trying really hard. That DAC and player graveyard of mine is testament to that.

Jack, I am not presuming that digital is perfect, or fully evolved. I know better.

I think the only thing I'm presuming is that audiophiles don't like signal processing and analogphiles are only ok with additives as long as they are hidden in conventional components. A box that changes things? A signal processor that forces them to acknowledge that they have stepped away from purity? These things have been anathema in the hobby since tone controls went away.

Personally, I think it would be a great idea. So the noise floor of analog adds a sense of ambience that some find attractive? Good to have that sorted out. Wouldn't it be nice if they had control over it, so they could blend it with the actual ambience in their rooms to get the right effect? Or is there more analog magic at work here? Does the turntable somehow hear the room and adjust its noise accordingly?

I absolutely believe you've hit on the key here, and I might even find this noise floor ambience useful myself if I could turn it down and, when appropriate (most of the time for me, YMMV), bi-pass it. Built in to the media? I'll pass.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

I feel quite the opposite, that audiophiles in fact tend to take too many liberties (the best example being the crusade against sibilance) rather than audiophiles having some kind of denial complex going. Even you have been known to take digs at folks that use equipment as tone controls. Well yeah, it's true. I do. EQ can't solve everything. I'm not denying it either because I'm after end results. So, see post #65.

What would you choose?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

The only problem I have with number one is that it is a theoretical perfection. Let's push this theory to it's limits. Let's say all your electronics does a simple sine wave perfectly in a null test but measured from the listening area it is nothing but. Now what if your electronics were all screwed up but the measurement at the listening area was a perfect replica of the simple sine wave. Which would you choose?

It's not perfection at all. Often, it's not even close. Most recordings are very flawed - often the most flawed thing in the signal chain until you get to the listening room. But they are all we've got. Anything less than the best reproduction of the recording we can get is a distortion of the only reality we have. Prefer it. Just don't tell me it's the "truth."

I have no argument with No.s 2 and 3. Even your live listening is near field Our mileage really does vary!

Yeah it often is. But so are the overwhelming majority of the recordings all of us listen to. Even the live ones. You know where those microphones are. You know what we're listening to when we put on our records/play our files. And you know it's very rarely "natural hall ambience." Perhaps the noise of the record gives us back some semblance of what is lost in recording technique. But without the ability to control/bipass it, I'll still pass.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I feel quite the opposite, that audiophiles in fact tend to take too many liberties (the best example being the crusade against sibilance) rather than audiophiles having some kind of denial complex going. Even you have been known to take digs at folks that use equipment as tone controls. Well yeah, it's true. I do. EQ can't solve everything. I'm not denying it either because I'm after end results. So, see post #65.

What would you choose?

I think it's both. I think audiophiles...not all, but I don't quite know how do differentiate them...take lots of liberties with natural sound. Sibilance is a good example. The real impact of upper midrange transients is another. But they do it in denial. They won't invest a grand in a nice pro-quality eq to reduce sibilance where they find it, but they will invest many thousands of dollars in gear that reduces sibilance and softens hard transients for them quietly, invisibly, and completely out of their control, in a way that can be assumed to be pure, not manipulated.

I think the poster child for this syndrome is the DAC with a tube output stage.

Tim