digital vs vinyl thoughts

Unsound, another way to say what Minor1 is saying is that surface noise is just that - on the surface, and can be listened through to the music. Digital distortions are more seriously disruptive to the sound of the music itself than analog distortions (even though there usually are more distortions in analog). Part of this is that typical analog distortions occur at much lower frequencies than in digital, where they are at higher and therefore more annoyingly disruptive frequencies. Digital always sounds less "real" for this reason, especially if we are talking about unamplified, acoustically produced music (mainly classical and jazz). Electronically produced music does not suffer nearly so much from digital reproduction, so if you are only into rock, it's not that big a difference between the two. And far too often, excessive amplification ruins acoustic timbres anyway. One of the most frustrating aspects of my job is playing a pops show where the "sound guys" mike the hell out of everything and then set up a bunch of monitors blasting all around the stage, trying to solve the problem that no one can hear each other by making it even louder. And this occurs all the time in the very finest halls in the world. Sigh. But I digress. The other much more controversial point is that many audiophiles don't actually listen beyond the surface of the music, even if they do have good hearing. Just because one has good hearing does not necessarily mean that one actually trains and uses their ears to hear and understand music well.

Hi Unsound - while what you say about some performers using the mike to hide things is certainly true in some situations, in many cases they defer to the "sound guys," usually with very unfortunate consequences. These guys can be VERY infuriating, often completely ignoring the comments of very widely respected artists (not to mention the comments of the people who work in the hall on a daily basis, what could we possibly know). They usually want it to sound how they want it to sound, and there is often nothing the musicians can do about it.

This is one reason why I also agree with Al's comment that the mike set up is a much bigger factor than many audiophiles realize, especially for classical music. The vast majority of "sound guys" have no formal training whatsoever - they learn from other guys they work with, who also had no formal training. There are a few schools that offer sound engineering degrees, but I have no idea what they are taught there, as there are no really good texts on the subject. Sadly, the vast majority of them are just winging it most of the time, yet are too arrogant to take suggestions from the people they are recording, who usually have a very good idea exactly what they want to sound like.

This was not really true back in the so-called "golden age" of analog recording, from the late 50's through the late 70's, say. There were great engineers at every major label. With the advent of digital recording and the myriad of possibilities it created for using many more mikes and set ups, every single engineer does things completely different, and unfortunately any idiot can becoming a recording engineer now. Many musicians, not realizing that the engineers are so little trained, just assume that the engineer knows better, and then are very disappointed in the results.