How much do you need to spend to get digital to rival analog?
I have heard some very high end digital front ends and although they do sound very good, I never get the satisfaction that I do when i listen to analog regardless if its a"coloration" or whatever. I will listen to high end digital, and then I soon get bored, as if it just does not have the magic That I experience with a well set up analog system. So how much do I need to spend to say, " get a sound that at least equals or betters a 3K Turntable?
It was painfully obvious that sub-order harmonic distortion and noises were getting in. It was the result of high-frequency things creating distortion components that were not harmonically related to the lower frequencies.
This is why you're never going to be fully satisfied with your standard digital recordings. DSD at least does a better job of moving more of the offending distortion to higher frequencies, and covering up or filtering some of this distortion. When that distortion is removed, digital can be made to surpass all analog.
I am going to throw out the proverbial Molotov cocktail in regards to actual frequency response in comparing digital to vinyl. It is never even mentioned in these threads.
LPs...gasp! Are typically in the 20 Hz- 20Hz range and to expand that range it comes down to the cartridge but how many new LPs contain frequencies up to 50 Hz? I have a feeling only the most expensive pressing do.
Those stats are never listed on Music Direct's site but if you buy an SACD or High Res recording you get those stats....as we expect to know what they are as that is the basis for our motivation to get the best sound quality possible.
I currently do not spin vinyl but are heading back soon, maybe within a year as I want to upgrade my integrated amp first, to take the plunge. I am going to NY Audio show on Friday and I look forward to hearing the difference and hopefully being blown away. I will bring a couple SACDs too.
I am a big advocate for SACDs and if you have a good to great rig you should be impressed by their audio reproduction...even in high res stereo.
I have been very please with High Res digital as well. I purchased the Yes Steve Wilson remixes and completely love them. I have the DVDA of Fragile and I listen to this newer release exclusively now. The details, bass reaponse, and nuances of these sophisticated recordings completely shine through.
In regards to SACD. The reissues of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here is stunning! I listen to the multi-track on my HT rig and it has renewed my love for this record big time. Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts 6-9)will rock you house.
Gilmore just completely unleashes.
I can't wait until they do Animals.
That all being said I would love to see this discussion steered toward the possible greater technical aspects of LPs...I mean vinyl over SACDs and 96/24 high Rez.
IMO, you need to spend 2-3x more on analog to get better sound than good digital. It will take more than $3000 to get a really good dac just like it will take much more than $10k to get good analog. Sure, you can get a $1k rega or music hall, and you get $1k worth of sound. I had $15k as my analog setup which I sold because I like my digital MQA/DSD/hires setup much better. What does a decent cartridge cost? $1k? $3k? How about the tonearm cost: $1k? $5k? How about the turntable itself. Then you have the phono preamp. For a decent system, $10k or more isn’t out of the question. For digital, you don’t need a special server and you don’t really want 1 in your audio room. Besides the cost, analog is much more limited in source material. Most of my new music in jazz, blues, or rock, doesn’t come on vinyl and more and more are using hires and/or MQA.
Dear itsjustme, As regards the subject at hand, I like what Raul and Mike Lavigne and a few others have said; it depends. But if "90%" of your LPs really do "sound like crap", you've got a problem that could be due to (1) buying used LPs that have been badly abused a priori, or (2) your equipment, which might include anything in the chain from the cartridge and its alignment forwards to your speakers and your listening biases. For example, if you obsess over surface noise, ticks, and pops, and the like, I could imagine that you might object to LPs per se. But most of us don't have excessive surface noise and rarely experience "ticks and pops", the favorite complaint of digiphiles. So, I'd say, for me, maybe 5% of my LPs sound bad, in which case, out they go.
But that article and then things claimed in it at times sounds like the technically questionable, at times arguably wrong, and certainly not universally proven or accepted claims made about MQA. Actually it gave me a total MQA deja-vu, and let’s be honest, there is certainly no agreement, between audiophiles whether MQA is better than simple 24/96 or 24/192, but based on the claims, it should be.
There is one example they use that gave me pause. They claim to hear 15-20db into the noise floor of an analog tape. Then they "pishaw" dithering claiming it is just averaging. If it averaging in the same sense as being able to hear 15-20db into the noise floor is averaging. (some of the claims they made w.r.t. sound localization w.r.t. waveform distortion are not accurate and supported by current research)
But that was 1995, and much of the problems they identified were from 1986 when they started, and that was really the infancy of digital recording.
Serious question for everyone. How do you reconcile claiming that vinyl is technically better ... not euphonically better, but technically better, when the vast majority of recordings made in the last 2 decades have been recorded on digital? Even where the original is analog, many remasters have been remastered via digitization? At some level, Vinyl is just another "DAC" for many records.
It all comes back to the recording, and the disc. Ya know, there ARE plenty of bad sounding LP’s. Besides, if an album is available on CD only, what are ya gonna do, deprive yourself of the music just because you think analog sounds better than digital? Are we sound lovers first, or music lovers?
Someone obsessive enough could transfer the music to RtR or vinyl.
Unless the listeners ears are between 17 and 25 in biological age every nuance of difference even in CNO systems is impossible to convey. The actual population discussing this will talk about jitter or filter harshness or wow and flutter or dynamic range etc. and theres too many structural issues to resolve attempting to normalize two very different forms of source media. Whatever yiur setup is, if you like how one sounds you will become accustomed to the other but circle back to your original preferences. Im not familiar with anyone devoting close to equal time with analog and digital. For me, analog is the special occasion champagne while digital is the daily driver...the mixed analogy is intentional.
there are so many levels of analog that you can't really say. i have what many consider to be the very tip top, bleeding edge of digital performance. yet, my best vinyl or tape easily surpasses it.
however; at more modest levels of analog there are cases to be made that digital can somewhat go head to head.
if you want to really understand where digital comes up short consider the limitations of digital recording, read this Stereophile interview from 1995 with the principles of Pacific Microsonics. especially read toward the bottom of the first page. you might think you know as much about music recording as these guys, but......you don't.
I find the complete opposite. Digital systems say under $1500 sound much better than analog - at least vinyl. But once you get over about $3K vinyl starts sounding better than equally priced digital.
I listen to about as much digital as I do analogue, although I go through periods where I listen primarily to one or the other. I'm VERY happy with the PS Audio Directstream and the most recent iteration of its FPGA programmed DAC. It sounds less digital than anything else I've ever heard and is now on a par with the DCS products for far less money.
Well.... great analog with great records does have a natural warmth. but if I’m honest, 90% of records sound like crap. Compressed, surface noise, lots of distortion, blah, blah.
Lots of digital sounds like crap too, but i find that on average i’m better off with digital. And digital recordings are getting better and better. Early on there were serious errors made, and the equipment was fussy (44/16 with brick wall filters and little overhead to miss level sets by). Today with great equipment and 24/192 much more slop is allowed.
I have posted before on this topic, so I’ll be brief. I believe that 90% of the problems in ANY sound are locked into the recording/mastering process, and maybe the actual pressing with Vinyl, since there is so much opportunity to f it up.
Take some great analog recordings that coexist in CD format - 3 examples I’ll sugegst are 1-ANY Mercury Living Presence; 2-"Ella and Louis" on Verve, and 3-"Andre Previn and friends perform West Side Story" (RCA Red Seal). Superb on both CD and LP, and very analog sounding CDs. And I’m talking red book CDs. While 192/24 may have practical value in the studio, we can get great sound out of 44/16 if everything int he chain is 100%.
I love great vinyl. I have a crazy obscure turntable and arm that i put countless hours into building and setting up. Its great, except that most records are crap. The vast majority of rock records are awful. yea the recordings are bad, and the masterings by deaf engineers or tuned for AM radio, but the vinyl makes it WORSE. There are great recordings - but many are old, or very costly specialty pressings, and rarely have the great performances i want. So most of my good sounding records are used or gulp - from my parents. Way too many recrords that sounded good once, after 100 playings (Born to run anyone?) are now awful, again. OK maybe i need to invest in a new copy, but there are 100 more i also need new copies of, and to get good ones, I’m back in specialty land. Contrast that with the Mercury remastered boxed sets I just bought - they are ALL good. And used too :-)
So, in the end, while i am sympathetic, on balance I disagree. Now many say i have fairly analog-y sounding digital. My DACs ( i have a small fleet) are mostly fairly old, and only one was super high end even when new. For the record, it comes in dead last in shoot outs. But its also carefully selected, and heavily modified with home made PLLs and power supplies. Duh, i do this sort of thing, and this shoemaker’s son has shoes. prototype ugly shoes, but very comfy.
So concentrate on a) good recordings, b) less on cost more on quality. Pass on the snake oil. read, read, read! Listen, listen, listen. you’ll find stuff. or decide you just love records ad then be happy with them. I’m typically happiest when i have some new (to me) recording on, in another room, while I work, totally paying no attention to the hgih end stuff, and learning a new piece.
True atdavid. Nelson Pass admits to adding harmonic distortion to his units because "audiophiles just want to be happy." I prefer my bass a bit on the heavier side because I feel it makes things sound more live. If I turn my Sonos speakers on in the rest of the house it creates the effect of being in a much much larger room which with concert DVDs is a lot of fun. Accurate? What is accurate? Speakers are such defective devises, even the best ones, that there really is no accurate. In reality it is pleasing vs not pleasing and pleasing is a matter of taste. Yes, the really best systems always get big smiles because relatively few of us get to hear them under the best circumstance (not at a show). So when we do it is big wows. When it comes to evaluating these recordings a lot of issue give the impression of "better." In the case of the early Bowie recordings the remastered recordings are hugely better obviously because of the mastering. The digital versions are more dynamic and the bass is more up front. Dylan's Desire sounds better in vinyl because it is smoother and has more "air" in it. The digital version sounds harsh in contrast. As a rule vinyl versions in my system have more of that "air" effect which may be a euphoric quality of vinyl or my record playback system. Setting up a top notch vinyl playback system is not easy and it may be that the digital only group might have had a bad vinyl experience. The only excuse I can find for the vinyl only group is that they are a group of recalcitrant snobs:) (that is a joke guys. Then again my mother use to say the truth comes out in jest)
mijostyn covered off the obvious issue of the masters being different.
If you are currently a "vinyl" person, then you may have an expectation of a sound that digital .... well just isn’t. The fairly high channel cross-talk of vinyl certainly creates a sound "field" that can be pleasing and I am inclined to believe that perhaps it has a benefit in untreated or poorly treated rooms, and hence offers a euphonic advantage over digital for many people. Even that slight background "hiss" can give an airyness that again many find pleasing.
There are features, typically in higher end DACs, but not exclusively, that allow you to play with filters that may allow you to tune the sound to how you like .... literally by adding imperfection, but nothing wrong if you enjoy the result. You can also pay an arm and a leg for a non oversampling DAC that will do the same thing, but without the ability to remove the imperfections when you do.
If you have a good listening space, a reasoned blend of absorption and diffusing to create a nice "environment" and you are not emotionally invested in vinyl, then you may find a good but fairly low end DAC sounds wonderful.
Keep in mind that almost everything in the last few decades was recorded and mastered in digital, and even remasterings often will be, so any "advantages" of vinyl come down to specific masterings and pleasant "flaws".
It all depends on what sounds better means. There are obvious differences when you compare analog to digital versions of the same recording which I love to do with people. Frankly, it goes both ways. Sometimes the analog version sounds better and sometimes the digital version sounds better. I have to believe it comes down to how the recording was mastered or remastered. I have never had an instance where a CD sounds better. But with high res (96/24 or higher) digital downloads it is a toss up. Dylan's Desire sounds better in analog using the MoFi 45 RPM disc. Early Bowie stuff sounds much better in digital even though they were analog recordings. Much of the very current recordings sound better in digital form such as any of the recent Wilco discs. This is all by direct AB comparison with both versions running at the same time with the volume equalized by meter. I use an Apple Mini loaded with the Pure Music program. I love vinyl but it is just not true that it sounds better all the time. It does sound better much of the time and I have many great old records that I have no desire to get a digital copy because the analog sounds great. But, I do have some knock out digital recordings like the high res version of Tool's new disc. WOW.
It all comes back to the recording, and the disc. Ya know, there ARE plenty of bad sounding LP’s. Besides, if an album is available on CD only, what are ya gonna do, deprive yourself of the music just because you think analog sounds better than digital? Are we sound lovers first, or music lovers?
The question is moot because it assumes analog is inherently better which it isn’t. It all depends on both sides. Having said that competitive digital is more common these days than not so even a minimal investment can take you far.
ring dac or ’multi-bit/r2r/ladder’ dacs. (the one dac type goes by 3 different names, overall)
that’s the starting point.
then, excellent clocks, and excellent analog and digital circuitry to support those dac types.
Then digital can be good enough to enjoy as much as analog, without having to ’work at it’ (re enjoying). But it takes some doing. Not necessarily expensive, just properly made.
I’ve got a $2-3k modern 20+ bit multi bit dac here (stock, untouched), that I have not bothered to turn on, as it cannot compete with my highly modified 25 year old 44/16 bit multibit dac.
This or a similar question appears on the forum with regular frequency. It makes for good reading every time. I hear what you are saying. I agree that the majority of digital rigs, even ones that are quite expensive, struggle to produce the magic that seems to be unique to vinyl. It is possible to get engaging, non fatiguing sound from digital. It is more a case of careful equipment selection and system matching than how much you spend. I have a Modwright Sony HAPZ 1ES that makes beautiful music that I can listen to for hours. Tube selection is critical. It takes work. At the end of the day digital won't sound like vinyl, but it can be very satisfying with the right equipment.
Dear @tzh21y : """ they do sound very good, I never get the satisfaction that I do when i listen to analog regardless if its a"coloration" or whatever. I will listen to high end digital, and then I soon get bored, as if it just does not have the magic... """
First problem to answer your op question is that you are already biased and accustom to the LP experience and what you are waiting is that digital ( with the same kind of signature than analog. ) can even or outperforms analog and this just can’t happen. Digital is a great alternative to listen music and I’m a music and analog lover too but I like a lot today digital alternative.
Analog and digital are two differents audio worlds where only shares that both " produce " music/sound and that’s all. Other important issue is that digital at playback in your system and due that many kind of system developed distortions are lower than in analog playback your system will " naked " or " severe exposed ( no place to hide those weaks as in LP playback developed higer distortions. ) to the weaks links in that system and maybe you could need to make up-grades on it and this is a good thing because you will have a beter quality performance system for both digital and analog alternatives.
We have to " undersdtand " digital sound and for do that we need a decent digital rig and play with for 2-3 months in a row with out touch in that time LP/analog and after that time return to listen LP and then you will know that why can’t compare apples with oranges but after that you will like digital with out that " boring " and obviously analog.
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