Mike, I would not say I am skeptical, but I have a comment regarding your description of the sound which I highlighted in bold above. I agree with you that "natural" is a loaded term, at least in the sense of how controversial it seems to be on WBF. Some of this controversy comes from people's different opinions about whether a sound or image seeming holographic and dimensional is in fact more or less natural.
personally when you or anyone uses the term 'natural' to me it refers primarily to tonal rightness and lack of any sort of sterility or bleached presentation, yet not over-ripe and obviously colored either. further for my own self, i relate it to how organic food tastes 'right' and non organic food is a little not quite right.
anyway you are right to think that i don't typically use that term any more as it's too political here on WBF; i have switched to 'sounding human' many times as my descriptor meaning the same thing. not that it's any better or even as good as natural, but it's not typically followed by 2 thread pages of angst.
I have gone back and forth on this in the past few years. I used to like a holographic image of a woman playing the guitar right there in front of me in my listening room. It is very enjoyable and can be very engaging. I thought it reminded me more of the live experience. I no longer think that. That impression of the woman with guitar sitting there is our mind's eye imagining the image from when we heard something similar during a live performance. The impression is based on the combination of our eyes and ears experiencing this in the past. It now seems to me that the sound itself is not so holographic and dimensional in reality, so I no longer try to recreate that in my listening room. I now try to create the sense of energy expanding from a location in space. That energy carries with it the information I need to recognize it as a guitar and voice in a specific space. I think these two different notions are distinct in nature and can be recreated to a greater or lesser extent by the gear and set up choices one makes when putting together a system. You are doing it now with this new digital source.
i'm of a mind that i'm a musical omnivore. i'll take everything that the recording might give me that get's the music more real to me, and expect my system will relate it all. everything. it's then up to me to absorb it. my system is tuned to not miss a lick. my proof of concept is the system being a complete chameleon.
if my digital path makes these multiple decade familiar recordings more alive with information, including a more complete holographic image and sense of actual events coming alive before me, i go with it.
it's absolutely not that i have an agenda of attaining a particular sonic attribute or 'artifact' in and of itself, but i'm trusting what i hear was always there to be found. was it the recording technique? the mic set-up? is it a weird assembly of multi-track magic? Q-sound? don't care, i go with it. nothing changed except i'm going deeper. i judge it by how i feel, how the music affects me. i don't over-think it.
Your response is very interesting to me because I read it and think that what you describe is moving away from natural, by enhancing the sense of imaging, but I am fully aware that others reading this will think I am nuts and completely disagree. These listeners will relate to your comments and think you are moving away from reproduction and toward a more realistic and convincing presentation. And I get that.
you have every right to interpret my path in your own way. i do not think that 'natural' or 'human' conflict with the things i'm hearing. clearly you seem to. we don't need to agree. i'd love it if you lived down the street and you could spend time in my room and then connect my words to what you hear and resolve the differences for yourself.
I do not think this has anything to do with vinyl versus digital but everything to do with the type of presentation one is after and which he prefers and likely thinks sounds most realistic. The first sentence in your post is exactly why I think this hobby is so fascinating and why the forums are worth reading. I appreciate that you are exploring these things to a very high level in your system and spending the time to share your impressions and progress with the rest of us.
Peter; we both take our passions very seriously and i likewise appreciate your efforts to find your own musical reproduction truth.
