Assuming there is a difference in the nature of analog sound compared to digital sound (as I do,) there are different ways of listening to each. To me, analog is more textured and real sounding, (some, or many may not agree) but does that mean it’s not possible to enjoy digital sound? On the contrary, I must adapt a different way of listening that doesn’t actively compare the two. If one keeps the analog ideal always in mind, it makes it difficult to appreciate digital music. Therefore I have to block that ideal from my mind and listen to digital on its own terms. It must generate its own reality. Only then, can I sit back and enjoy.
I have a few thousand LPs and a store of CD rips that still get a fair bit if use but a lot of digital listening is to streamed music these day and is exploratory. The downside of streaming is not so much the sound quality, which is pretty close to the rips through my system, but that I don’t tend to replay something that failed to grab me immediately whereas if I bought a CD or LP on spec, maybe after hearing just one track or even from a review, I will give it a few goes, quite often it will grow on me and these tend to be the albums with staying power. I still listen to vinyl more often than digital but I’m exploring cartridges at the moment which focusses attention away from just enjoying the music.
OP, if your goal was to see if you could get analog fish to take the bait, mission accomplished. How easily they’re snared. Here's a rebuttal: https://youtu.be/feMKdVnXgbQ?t=16
For me, after decades of trying to get digital to sound as satisfying as analog it finally has in my system. Over the last few years digital streamers and DACs have gotten a lot better. My system is now completely satisfying for both. While analog is a bit more detailed and airy digital is so close, that the experience is substantially the same. I can tell because I have I really don’t notice which is playing if I forget and don’t look up. It has taken a lot of time and money to achieve this, and since I am now retired it is of great enjoyment to me.
As was mentioned in a previous thread, if you cut yourself off from digital, you deprive yourself of most current or recent performances. If that matters to you. I believe you have to listen to the specific reality digital does provide, even if it isn’t the ideal. BTW, The original analog MJ “Thriller” sounds great!
Comes down to the equipment. IMO and experience a reference level DAC will outperform a average to good phono stage. But a refence level phono stage will easily outperform a reference level DAC,
You have not heard good digital if you have not heard big soundstage ,deep image textured digital ,with deep tuneful Bass . you didnot say what your digital was and how much $$
The truth is whatever we are willing to believe as true. In other words, we may very well believe things that are not true. We're made that way which is why we should try to accept other people's opinions no matter how wrong they are.
The truth is whatever we are willing to believe as true. In other words,
we may very well believe things that are not true. We're made that way
which is why we should try to accept other people's opinions no matter
how wrong they are.
for me material is far more important than media format. many artists didn’t release lps and many artists didn’t release cds, but I want them all including all. for pop music listeners it's not an issue because most of the pop items have thousands of releases per each album, but for me I don't have much choices, because I listen pretty much all except pop music.
I just love it when somebody buys the cheapest digital crap on the market then claims it doesn't sound good. (or when somebody buys cheap stuff and claims it beats $1m systems). Why not get some decent equipment before you actually see what good sound sounds like in either environment, vinyl too. IMO, my 5-digit digital setup sounds better than my 5-digit analog system.
I enjoy both format digital and analog. I listen to CD, Vinyl and Streaming music.
@p01529 one could say the same about some one buy cheap a cheap ass turntable using and built in phono stage and crappy used vinyl. Cuts both ways really.
When I'm feeling lazy I play CD's, as I then have more control with the remote. When I'm serious, I'll clean an album and play that. Both sound excellent on my system. I'll never forget the first time my (then) 20 year old daughter picked up the tonearm and attempted to gently place it on a record. She had a frightened look on her face. It was so precious. Vinyl is an experience!
I still listen mostly to vinyl, but as my system has progressed, I have come around to somewhat appreciate digital. I do have a few old CDs, and a NAD 5000 cd player that I mostly used for testing vintage equipment. I now have that and a Node 2i in my two channel system.
The vinyl system is still king by a wide margin, but the digital is now listenable, which is great for background music when I don't want to bother swapping records, and checking out new music and stuff that hasn't/wont make it to vinyl. I will probably get an external DAC sometime in the future which will hopefully bring the digital stuff up a few notches. The NAD can be used as a transport, having a coax output.
"
So what can’t people just like what they like." +1 @earlflynn
At the moment my front end is all digital. Some days I get the itch to jump into the deep end of the pool and add an analog front end as well.
Then my synaptic activity calms down (propofol anyone?). And I simply relax and listen to some of my favorite music. The original cast West Side Story is a good one.
You see its simple for me...I just wanna listen to the MUSIC, not the equipment. I'm quite sure many of us have gone through many iterations of systems that either please or get changed once again. I'm at a good place. In recognition of that I don't want to muck it up by adding what would essentially be an additional "system". Creates competition in my tiny little OCD brain.
My post inevitably engenders the debate on the relative merits of digital vs. analog. That was not essentially my main focus, though. I really enjoy good sounding digital recordings. My point is not that one mutually excludes the other. They can both peacefully coexist. I just want to point out that you may have to listen a little differently to each in order to enjoy both. I do believe there is a difference in texture between the two formats. As I stated, some or many may disagree.
My DAC is the Audio Research CD9se. Which by the way I compared in my system with a Berkeley Alpha 3 which is considerably more expensive than the ARC. I found really minuscule differences between the two with my tastes favoring the ARC.
I find it so interesting that many people prefer listening to distortion. The vast majority of recordings done since the mid 80s are digital. If a digital recording sounds different at all when played back through an analog system, that difference is by definition "distortion." In digital form music is just data, binary numbers, distinct values. As long as the data is not corrupted there is no distortion, none all the way to the final DAC and the first analog step. Remember analog cell phones? pretty bad. Now we have digital phones, clear as a bell regardless of how crappy the signal is until you lose it entirely. So, many prefer playing a record made from a digital master to just playing the digital data back through a DAC. Forgetting about background noise and issues generic to vinyl playback but you also add distortion produced by the cartridge and phono stage added to the mix. There is absolutely nothing wrong with good digital playback. It is eons superior to analog playback. It is just that some brains can't get a handle on it. Proof that you hear what you think you will here. Lay instinct. I think it is amazing how good vinyl playback can get. I certainly have records that sound better than their digital counterparts. But, that difference is a mastering issue and not the fault of digital playback. The best playback I have ever heard was from high resolution copies of digitally recorded music.
"On the contrary, I must adapt a different way of listening that doesn’t actively compare the two. If one keeps the analog ideal always in mind, it makes it difficult to appreciate digital music."
It's hard to make out your premise and your argument. How about this: If one keeps the in-person musical experience ideal in mind, it makes it difficult to appreciate recorded music. This would seem even more difficult but we are all here because we do appreciate recorded music. And IMO it's not difficult at all!
"I just want to point out that you may have to listen a little differently to each in order to enjoy both"
Actually, how does one listen differently? Can't figure that out. As for me, I just sit down and . . . listen.
I thought someone would question me on how one listens differently. (I’m surprised no one has brought this up til now.) And your point about the in-person experience vs. the recorded experience is also pertinent. I do believe one has to listen differently to recorded music, to “suspend disbelief” in order enjoy recordings, which seldom if ever match the real thing. Same with digital vs. analog. I think digital is less “real” than analog. You may disagree.
"To me, analog is more textured and real sounding, (some, or many may not agree) but does that mean it’s not possible to enjoy digital sound? On the contrary, I must adapt a different way of listening that doesn’t actively compare the two. If one keeps the analog ideal always in mind, it makes it difficult to appreciate digital music. Therefore I have to block that ideal from my mind and listen to digital on its own terms. It must generate its own reality. Only then, can I sit back and enjoy."
This thread makes me grateful that I don't have this problem!
Can I enjoy recorded music AS recorded music? Can I enjoy "Hamlet" the movie knowing it’s not the live stage performance? I think most of us here can. Some may like the analog experience more and some may like the digital experience more. That may very well depend upon their analog budget vs. their digital budget and their acumen at selecting components. I think we are now past the time when it can be said one is inherently superior to the other. In my case, I have the luck of two fine front ends (by my standards) and am enjoying them equally--though it’s hard to deny the convenience of digital--especially if relaxation is an issue. Read on.
But you have raised the stakes to a new level. I call it "the WILLFUL suspension of dis-belief" for if a person has his wits about him he will not be fooled into believing he is hearing a live concert. One has to try, Sometimes being totally relaxed (and I’m not going to divulge how I may attain that state) I can try to believe I am there, and succeed. It may be easier with a simple recording, a solo instrument perhaps. The first note* of the Chopin first Ballad played by Moravec comes to mind. But I have done it to the Mahler 3 too.
So what I hear you saying is that on your system you find it easier to push yourself into this willful state listening to your analog side, than from your digital side. Am I getting close?
*To me it always sounds like that piano is in my room, and it’s 16/44..
Interesting discussion. I do agree that on my system, the analog side is more convincing to me. Through the years, when one side, analog or digital, got too far ahead of the other side, I poured time and money into equaling things out. I’m at a point now where I really do enjoy both, and if truth be told, (for whatever reasons) I listen more to digital than analog. And I do have a sense of reality therein. BUT. when I play a record, even though the digital seemed convincing, I hear more texture and space. And, I just have to convince myself when streaming or playing a disc that it’s just as real, even though the sonic signatures are different. Where we disagree, is on the reason for this. After many, many years listening and experimenting, I think the sonic nature is inherent in the media. You are convinced the difference ls due to the quality of the equipment used in each. Maybe we’re both right!
but does that mean it’s not possible to enjoy digital sound?
This is your personal subjective opinion not supported by the robust sales of digital gear, media, and streaming. If you’re asking can one enjoy their digital audio as much as analog is also highly subjective AND it depends on the quality of your audio chain.
Although the audio quality of digital components are growing rapidly, the sound approaches analog at significantly higher price points such as MSB, dCS, Soulution, Lampi, etc. The cheapest “analog sounding” DACs I’ve found is the $10K Mojo Mystique or the $15k APL Hi-FI DSD-SR mk2 (this DAC was designed to sound analog).
Maybe you’ll enjoy a tube DAC, like the $3k PrimaLuna EVO 100 Tube DAC, better than your current component.
glad both camps of creators seek to best the other…..some of us continue to invest in digital, the LP and high speed tape and enjoy the music, very rarely available….wait for it……on all three formats….
Digital is more picky on quality of speaker and amplifier but when your system is setup up correctly with the necessary components and speakers both are magic and you just pick the best recordings on either format and enjoy.
Ha- I’m barely surviving building my analog+digital chains. Adding R2R plus tape media would not pass WAF and my bank account. Survival trumps audio bliss.
I'm forever amused by those who spend a couple hundred bucks on a streamer and then run it through a dozen year old processor and post their $80,000 (or way more) analogue setup is way superior to it.
Digital runs from the wall out.... plug, AC lines and conditioning, streamer, processor and then on to the rest of the system. Treat and tweak digital the same way you did your analogue system including running the streamer on a good router and good Ethernet cables, be sure your streamer to DAC is on the best sounding cable for that link, and DAC to preamp, and so forth. Do the work and you will get the sound.
@jjss49 ... digital cable matching to your components so important. If folks haven't cable rolled extensively in their system maybe not even exorbitant priced analogue. Just my 2 cents... I've heard some pretty crappy expensive analogue systems. @ latik ... drop $100K or more on analogue and plug and play a Node and say my analogue is so much better. LOL... what did they really expect or were they just trying to impress themselves?
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