What does it mean when people describe Digital as Sounding like "Analog"? Best term?

Mike Lavigne

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Great to see members of your family practice social distancing Mike. At your age, just can't let your guard down. Please be careful of guests visiting you. It is not even close to finish of first wave over there. We keep you company on wbf and you don't need to wear a mask talking to me. :D

dear Tang,

appreciate the kind thoughts.:)
 

the sound of Tao

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A million % Tim... it’s been my primary audio goal for a while. It takes a lot of continuous letting go to allow the ingrained patterns of the past to actually just really let go... to just listen without evaluating, without thinking, just in feeling and an openness to connecting. The crazy thing is that this is exactly where it all started.
 
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bonzo75

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Great to see members of your family practice social distancing Mike. At your age, just can't let your guard down. Please be careful of guests visiting you. It is not even close to finish of first wave over there. We keep you company on wbf and you don't need to wear a mask talking to me. :D

On a hifi forum, a rare chance to tell Mike not to be silly
 
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Kingrex, you may be referring to me. I posted my impressions of my new Pass preamp here as well. I can expand a bit on what my mentor in Vienna was talking about and how years later with the help of WBF member DDK, I am starting to realize this "natural" sound in my own system. It is one way in which I now recognize the difference between a system which sounds "natural" and one which sounds "hifi". Here is how I think of it:

Sound originates from a singer or instrument in a real space. When we listen to a recording, the system can present an image of the singer or instrument. We can localize that and we start to describe a system’s imaging and sound staging capabilities. I think of that as distinct and separate from the launch of that energy or sound out into space. We hear the hall fill with sound at a live concert. A successful audio system fills up a listening room with energy, just as a cello energizes a live hall.

I heard this energy from one singer or one cello at both the edge of the stage during rehearsals and from the director's box in the back of the great Vienna State Opera during the evening performances. Less successful audio systems simply present the image and stage and sound as something distant or remote, as if one is observing it rather than being enveloped by the sound or energy of the voice or instrument.

This portrayal of the sound generated from a voice or instrument on a stage within the imagined soundstage in our listening rooms leaving its origins and moving to fill the space we occupy, and indeed the whole listening room, is what makes the sound “natural” to me. (along with convincing timbre, dynamics, etc.) It needs to be effortless, as it is in real life.

When done really well, we leave the realm of hifi and enter the realm of the natural portrayal of sound. It helps to understand this, IMO, if we explain the distinction between the origin of the sound and how the sound then leaves and fills the space. However, in reality, it is one thing, inseparable, and a whole. One does not hear the two as separate and indistinguishable, but rather, it is one thing, and it is the incredible energy created by the bow against the strings and the wooden body vibrating.

A friend today described for me this effect in his system at home. He explained how the organ in Cantata Domino takes up a physical location in the church and its images at a location on the front wall of his listening room. But the sound is everywhere once it leaves the pipes. It breaks forward of the plane of the speakers, the front wall, everything in front of the listener and, most importantly, it fills the space in which the listener is sitting. Both at the concert hall and in the listening room. This energy becomes a physical presence in the room, not a sound and image observed in front of the listener.

This would be near impossible to demonstrate using only one system. It is better demonstrated using two different systems one that can do it and one that cannot. The system either does this or it does not. It is either natural sounding, or it is not. My system used to struggle with this. Now it does not.

This is a bit off the analog/digital topic, but it gets to the heart of why I think a properly assembled and set up audio system can sound convincing and like the natural sound of music.

Peter
well formulated and to the point imo
once you´ve crossed that threshold you´re home free and the system will never cease to involve you
need big room and loads of sqinches in lower registers though....
 

Rhapsody

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bonzo75

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the sound of Tao

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spiritofmusic

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the sound of Tao

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I'm deffo distancing from him.
You can run Marc but you can’t hide... there’s just no way your outdistancing these two... they’re just hitting their straps! Giddy up! Lol
 

the sound of Tao

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I see the flag in the background right
good lucko_O
It was the flash of bright colours that made him bolt in the first place. I just love that she’s got a cigarette and a bottle of Powerade... good that she’s keeping her electrolytes up!
 

Lagonda

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Down under real men put on leather... not vinyl! View attachment 66523

Anyone can go vinyl... but it takes someone special to get away with a leather number like this...
If that horse had been a filly not a stud, Ron would have given you a serious warning for that picture ;) Oh the inequality of the genders !
 
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the sound of Tao

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If that horse had been a filly not a stud, Ron would have given you a serious warning for that picture ;) Oh the inequality of the genders !
Perhaps let’s not put the horse before the cart here Milan... I was however hoping that a simple expression of unbridled joy (OK so it’s bridled) transitioning from a well held canter to then powerfully galloping up Oxford St like some great free and noble wild Andalusian stallion makes this a more civilised celebration of pure equine identity!

Though lucky she’s not flogging him or then it would just be two audiophiles truly expressing the eternal spirit of the great digital and analogue debate.
 
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Lagonda

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Perhaps let’s not put the horse before the cart here Milan... I was however hoping that a simple expression of unbridled joy (OK so it’s bridled) transitioning from a well held canter to then powerfully galloping up Oxford St like some great free and noble wild Andalusian stallion makes this a more civilised celebration of pure equine identity!

Though lucky she’s not flogging him or then it would just be two audiophiles truly expressing the eternal spirit of the great digital and analogue debate.
You are in rare form today Graham !;)
 

the sound of Tao

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You are in rare form today Graham !;)
Thank you Milan, I’m in grading assessments mode fortnight... so naturally I am doing most everything I can :eek: to avoid writing anything serious. Better get back to work :D.
 
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tima

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Perhaps let’s not put the horse before the cart here Milan... I was however hoping that a simple expression of unbridled joy (OK so it’s bridled) transitioning from a well held canter to then powerfully galloping up Oxford St like some great free and noble wild Andalusian stallion makes this a more civilised celebration of pure equine identity!

Though lucky she’s not flogging him or then it would just be two audiophiles truly expressing the eternal spirit of the great digital and analogue debate.

Oh my ... you could be a reviewer !
 

the sound of Tao

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Oh my ... you could be a reviewer !
Lol, many thanks for that kind consideration Tim but I struggle enough at my own occupation... sometimes I just struggle to even remember what that is exactly.

I leave writering for those more patienter and better built for the great task.
 

tima

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.... I leave writering for those more patienter and better built for the great task.

Wise choice - that way you won't have to put up with being edited. :)

It was the 'noble wild Andalusian stallion' analogy that caught my eye.
Which immediately caused me to think of Morrison's lyrics in 'Spanish Caravan' on Waiting for the Sun.
And off we went !

Say ... that calls for a brief interlude:
 
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