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How Good Can Digital Get?

I've read these threads on the EMM, Exemplar, DV-50, etc. with interest. Last year the "best" digital was the AA Cap II or Wadia/GNSC or MF Trivista or SCD-1 Modified Kern, or whatever. Now we've got a whole new crop of contenders.
You don't see debates like this in any other forum -- standard setting speakers or amps or turntables do not pop up every few months.

This suggests to me that (a) digital audio, like computer processors, is a rapidly moving techonology in which it's possible to make significant advancements quickly and successively; and (b) digital audio still leaves a lot to be desired (when compared to analogue).

What I wonder is will digital ever (really) get as good (or even better) than vinyl? My last comparison was my Audio Aero Cap 2 against a VPI Scout and the turntable truly did "trounce" the cd player. It was a difference in kind, not degree. Given that redbook CD is just a sample of the analogue wave form I have trouble understanding how it can ever sound as fluid, natural, and, well, musical as a properly matched and calibrated table, arm and cartridge.

That said, I have not heard the EMM or Exemplar gear. Am I missing something?
bsal

Showing 2 responses by rsbeck

rsbeck
887 posts
 
Newbee -- right on.
rsbeck
887 posts
 
I would hazard a guess that about 50% of the audio world is about enjoying music and sharing the path to that enjoyment with others.

But, humans have an inherrent need to self-actualize. The dark side of this is the need to feel superior to others. Thus, humans have a tendancy to form cliques, clubs, and secret societies -- all for the purpose of feeling, "special."

Sadly, audio enthusiasm is often an outlet for this same sort of impulse.

Thus, the audiophile world can be somewhat like a secret society. Like all such societies, there are rituals, slogans, and beliefs one must profess in order to maintain membership.

Slogans like, "digital can never sound as good as vinyl" and "solid state can never sound as good as tubes" all the way to "my amplifiers sound better on maple platforms than on mahogany" and "silver sounds better than copper."

Part of it is just the old schoolyard taunt brought to a new medium, "my auditory prowess is bigger than yours" or "my ears are better than yours."

There is an audiophile who roams these forums who has a megabuck vinyl rig. He told me on the phone that his Emm Labs equipment sounds better than his vinyl rig and that if he were just getting into audio today, he would bypass vinyl altogether.

But, I see him on these forums and when the discussion turns to vinyl versus digital, he murmers the slogan, saying something like, "Emm Labs gets me about 60% of the way to vinyl and that's a revolution in digital, much better than anything before it."

Excellent way to split the apple and still belong.

It is sad. The guy can't admit in public that he likes his digital gear better. Why? My guess he doesn't want to risk his membership.

Another aspect is that in any hobby, there is a fine line between enjoying the hobby as a diversion and using the hobby as an obsessive/compulsive ritual.

Vinyl, with its attendant fears and rituals, and demands for dust fighting, record cleaning, tone-arm tweaking, and vinyl preserving is tailor made for the obsessive/compulsive.

What's my point? My point is that often this hobby is about enjoying music and sharing the path to that enjoyment with others, but just as often it about something else, having nothing to do with music.
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