What is the audiophile digital future? And how fast will it be here?

[mep]

Spotify sounds like an accident that happened in your pants. As in "He just spotified himself and now he has to go home and change his drawers."

I like my music server, and at some point I will make it better by building a new one that uses a fanless MB, fanless CPU, and fanless power supply so I can have it in the same room with me and not run 35' ICs from my D/A to my preamp. I'm finished with playing with CD players.

 

[mep]

How would i know? I've recorded, Mark, and listened to the playback for hours on end, as critically as you only can when it's your own work and every flaw digs in under your skin and itches. I know you won't believe this...such is life...but I know exactly what really good, fresh, analog tape sounds like -- not a second or third generation copy, or the copy's vinyl shadow -- and I know it playing back my own voice and my own instruments.

But did you own/hear tape and CD copies of the same performance of you and your band to compare or are you comparing the memory of tape to the current experience of listening to digital copies of other music?

And I know what really good redbook digital sounds like, because I have some of it. Examples of redbook cds that sound as good as any classic analog recording? Give Gershwin's World a try. Play "Sex Kils" off of Joni Mitchell's Travelogue . Crank it up. Hold on to your hat.

I have no doubt there are many examples of good sounding digital-I heard a bunch of it this weekend as well as what I have at home coming off my server. What I’m looking for is the great. None of the digital I heard this weekend was superior to analog played in the same room with the same preamp, power amp(s), and speakers. And it didn’t matter if the source of analog was LP or tape. The outcome was the same in every room. Digital sounded good, analog sounded great. And trust me, if analog didn’t sound better than digital, I doubt that all of the dealers/distributors/OEMs would bother with the hassle of toting big, expensive, and heavy analog rigs to these shows. It would just be a ridiculous waste of time, energy, and money to do so if analog makes your expensive gear you are selling sound worse than digital. And I would assume that those rooms which had no analog had made that decision.

Do they replicate analog? I doubt either were ever "analog" in the first place. Replicate? Get yourself a really good converter and ripping software, rip some of your best vinyl to digital. AB it blind. Get back to me. It'll even "replicate" the noise. Tim

I’m not interested in buying an A/D converter in order to convert my LPs to digital. Not at all. Not one bit. I know for a fact the sound can’t get better so there is no sense in wasting the time, money, and hard drive space.

Back to the future of digital…I still think it’s bright. I think the Cloud idea will remain an idea for high resolution digital audio for the foreseeable future. Aside from the technical issues, people like to own the software they purchase, even if it just exists on their hard drive. If we are able to have the choice of buying music that was recorded at the bit rates that now exist for professionals, I think digital will continue to improve for us.

 

[fas42]

For some people, redbook CD has already attained perfection and there is no need to expect any further improvements to perfection. Judging by what I just heard at the RMAF in room after room, digital still has a long way to go before it should run out of improvements to the so-called perfection it has already achieved. However, if you have already convinced yourself that digital simply can’t get any better, your future has indeed arrived. Enjoy it.

Exactly what I would have expected. In fact, I would have been very surprised if it were otherwise. Simply put, good digital replay is far more fragile than analogue in the things that are important to audio peoples' ears, and in show conditions and showrooms I have heard totally execrable digital sound. All the digital gear running in close quarters is disturbing each other, it's an interference nightmare.

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

’m not interested in buying an A/D converter in order to convert my LPs to digital. Not at all. Not one bit. I know for a fact the sound can’t get better so there is no sense in wasting the time, money, and hard drive space.

For a very similar set of reasons, I'm not interested in buying a turntable rig and starting a record collection. Not at all. Not one bit.

We can save ourselves a lot of time here if we just agree to disagree, Mark.

Tim

Oh, and by the way, I don't think that transferring your records to digital would make them sound better either. I don't believe in magic.

 

[fas42]

I like my music server, and at some point I will make it better by building a new one that uses a fanless MB, fanless CPU, and fanless power supply so I can have it in the same room with me and not run 35' ICs from my D/A to my preamp. I'm finished with playing with CD players.

Following my post on interference, I would have that server as far away electrically from the audio setup as possible, I would run long, long leads from the server to the DAC, which would be right next to the preamp.

Frank

 

[mep]

For a very similar set of reasons, I'm not interested in buying a turntable rig and starting a record collection. Not at all. Not one bit.

We can save ourselves a lot of time here if we just agree to disagree, Mark.

Tim

Oh, and by the way, I don't think that transferring your records to digital would make them sound better either. I don't believe in magic.

And I’m not advocating that you go out and buy a turntable Tim. You’re happy with what you have and that’s a great place to be. I have agreed to disagree with you long ago. Your future has arrived now because redbook CD is perfect for you and you think it should be good enough for everyone else as well. My ears tell me otherwise and I spend my money accordingly.

 

[Old Listener]

Spotify sounds like an accident that happened in your pants. As in "He just spotified himself and now he has to go home and change his drawers."

Here is another quip for you in this sentence from answer.com. It might apply to some audiophiles.

The Bourbon kings were known for their stubbornness; the politician Talleyrand is supposed to have said of them, “They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.”

Tim tried something different unorthodox for an audiophile and found it to be useful.

Bill

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

And I’m not advocating that you go out and buy a turntable Tim. You’re happy with what you have and that’s a great place to be. I have agreed to disagree with you long ago. Your future has arrived now because redbook CD is perfect for you and you think it should be good enough for everyone else as well. My ears tell me otherwise and I spend my money accordingly.

Mark, you can't even seem to sustain "agree to disagree" in that paragraph in which you tried to agree to disagree. Not without putting argumentative words in my mouth, anyway. And in the last couple of pages you've disagreed with almost everyone, up to and including the poor guy who named Spotify.

FWIW, I don't think the quest is over or redbook is perfect. But I do believe that it's all but indistinguishable from all the current commercial hi-res formats, so yeah, for the moment I think it's good enough.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim tried something different unorthodox for an audiophile and found it to be useful.

I love Spotify. By band shares tunes we're learning on Spotify. Friends tell me about a new record (or an old one) or a new band that I haven't heard, and I can go audition the whole album right now. I have discovered a ton of new music through Spotify. I hear a snippet of interesting music on NPR on my way home, and I"m listening to the album before supper. I have rediscovered a ton of old music through Spotify. And I get most of it at 320 kbps. Can someone out there who has trained themselves to hear compression artifacts differentiate it from lossless? Maybe. Sure. Can they do while their enjoying the music instead of listening to artifacts. I suppose even that's possible, and everyone who can has my deepest sympathies.

I wouldn't care if they called it skidmarks.

Tim

 

[mep]

Mark, you can't even seem to sustain "agree to disagree" in that paragraph in which you tried to agree to disagree. Not without putting argumentative words in my mouth, anyway. And in the last couple of pages you've disagreed with almost everyone, up to and including the poor guy who named Spotify.
Tim

I don't know who you are referring to when you say I disagreed with "everyone." As for Spotify, I just said I thought the name sounded funny. I'm not arguing with Spotifiy.

 

[mep]

Here is another quip for you in this sentence from answer.com. It might apply to some audiophiles.

The Bourbon kings were known for their stubbornness; the politician Talleyrand is supposed to have said of them, “They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.”

Tim tried something different unorthodox for an audiophile and found it to be useful.

Bill

Bill-I know nothing about Spotify and don't claim to. I just said the name sounded funny to me. If Tim is or anyone else is enjoying it, I'm happy for them.

 

[garylkoh]

Following my post on interference, I would have that server as far away electrically from the audio setup as possible, I would run long, long leads from the server to the DAC, which would be right next to the preamp.

Frank

err.... that's wrong Frank.

As I discovered at RMAF, unless the DAC does a very good job at galvanic isolation, the server and the DAC will still be electrically connected and interference will come. Also, at the frequencies we are talking about, a long enough lead from the server to the DAC will become an antenna transmitting RFI, so a long lead (either USB or Firewire) is self defeating. A short USB cable, on the other hand, with a ferrite bead at the DAC end should be a far better solution. Then Interocitor between DAC and preamp will galvanically isolate even the DAC from the rest of your analog system.

 

[mauidan]

The audiophile digital future is network players connected via Ethernet, but you have to use the right cable.

http://www.audiostream.com/content/audioquest

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

err.... that's wrong Frank.

As I discovered at RMAF, unless the DAC does a very good job at galvanic isolation, the server and the DAC will still be electrically connected and interference will come. Also, at the frequencies we are talking about, a long enough lead from the server to the DAC will become an antenna transmitting RFI, so a long lead (either USB or Firewire) is self defeating. A short USB cable, on the other hand, with a ferrite bead at the DAC end should be a far better solution. Then Interocitor between DAC and preamp will galvanically isolate even the DAC from the rest of your analog system.

I have an Audioquest USB cable that I bought because I was in the business for awhile, and when you remove all of the excess mark-up with an employee discount, it doesn't cost much more than a black plastic USB cable from the computer department. It's pretty.

Tim

 

[amirm]

Can someone out there who has trained themselves to hear compression artifacts differentiate it from lossless? Maybe. Sure. Can they do while their enjoying the music instead of listening to artifacts. I suppose even that's possible, and everyone who can has my deepest sympathies.

I wouldn't care if they called it skidmarks.

Tim

Tim, if your ears are sensitive to those artifacts, you will hear them all the time whether you focus on them or not. Indeed, the worst thing about acuity here is that you can't take it out of our mind. It is like having dirt in your eye and trying to ignore it .

I think the right way to state what you are saying is that most people are not sensitive to such artifacts at high data rates so for most people, this is much less of an issue that it seems psychologically.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim, if your ears are sensitive to those artifacts, you will hear them all the time whether you focus on them or not. Indeed, the worst thing about acuity here is that you can't take it out of our mind. It is like having dirt in your eye and trying to ignore it .

I think the right way to state what you are saying is that most people are not sensitive to such artifacts at high data rates so for most people, this is much less of an issue that it seems psychologically.

Then may I never learn to hear them!

Tim

 

[caesar]

The gains from current hi-res offerings (not counting the gains from better mastering of current hi-res offerings) are so small that they are almost pointless in my view, leaving the future of audiophile digital right where the future of audiophile analog is: in better recordings, better masters, better speakers and better environmental acoustics.

Tim

Tim, a couple of things. First, if you listen to a hi-rez recording on a superb system with a high end player like Playback Designs, even you may be impressed. But we have been down that road in other threads. Second, there has been a pattern in record companies boosting their revenues every decade or so by coming out with a new format - lp, cassette, cd, remastered cd, etc., and re-releasing the biggest hits in their libraries on the new format. I wonder if the record companies will bother.

 

[caesar]

Coming late into this thread . I think the future of innovation in this area is clear. It will follow the path of what consumers will do! Look at digital downloads. Consumers have been ripping and downloading music for more than a decade. It is only recently that the same has been offered to audiophiles. And music servers are just getting popular, whereas the same occurred in 1990s for consumers.

By the same token, the consumer is moving on to cloud storage and on-demand streaming of all music in the world (with ads or subscription fees). With so many connected devices and the hassle of syncing, the music is moving to centralized storage and streamed. Ultimately if this is all about music, then this is the model we all need to move to.

The ideal device then has a high quality DAC at one end (or part of a processor) and a cellular connection at the other end. Why cellular? Because it can be pre-provisioned when you buy the device with no configuration in the home. This is the key to success of Kindle with its built-in network that is transparent to users.

Barriers are many. For one, there is just not enough of a market for someone to do any of this. All we can hope is someone at an existing cloud service like google waking up and wanting to do this "just because." Cellular networks are too slow and too expensive for this kind of use. So land line will need to be used.

Amir, great thoughts! Of course, we don't know what the consumers will do in the short term. So we see companies do several things, hoping they will succeed. Seems like we are seeing companies focus on several strategies. One strategy, like that of Playback Designs, is to release a new add-on item that applies to only a handful of recording. Definitely more "audiophile" than "music lover" focus. If a lot of stuff is re-released as true hi-rez, this will be a big hit for PD. Another strategy is the music server strategy: rip all your music onto a proprietary box, like the Sooloos, for convenience. This, of course, locks the consumer in, especially if they rip a bunch of cd's onto the server.

Long term, you may be right on.