2. analog
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More convinced of analog than ever

Wednesday night I went to my local high end shop's "Music Matters" open house, which featured six meticulously set up listening rooms highlighting the best and brightest offerings from Wilson, Transparent, Audio Research, Ayre, Magnepan, Peachtree, B&W, Classe, Rotel, etc., with factory reps to introduce their products and innovations.

There were unmistakable improvements in reproduction of redbook CD, with jitter reduced to near zero, and holographic reproduction of images, soundstages, and the minute signals that indicate instrument resonance and hall ambience.

And yet... and yet... when the demos shifted from redbook to the new downloadable hi-rez digital formats in 24/88.2 and 24/96, there was an unmistakable jump in resolution around the edges of the notes, of sounds swelling, resonating, and decaying, of greater verisimilitude.

But compared to the turntable demos, I'd say the 24-bit digital got me about 80% there, whereas LP playback closed the gap completely. Once the LPs started spinning, there was a collective relaxed "aaaahhh" that went through the audience. It wasn't because of dynamic compression. Far from it, the Ayre prototype turntable was strikingly dynamic with a subterranean noise floor.

The sense of ease and relaxation I attribute to a sudden drop in listener fatigue. The LP-source music had so much more of what makes music musical. We didn't have to work nearly as hard to rectify the ear-brain connection as with even the best of 24-bit digital, which was still significantly better than redbook. The redbook playback always reminded me that I was listening to "hi-fi," even when played through multi-thousand dollar players from ARC and Ayre.

Even my local Brit-oriented Rega/Naim dealer asserts that the latest CD players rival or exceed LP playback.

I say nay.

What say you?
johnnyb53

Showing 1 response by musicslug

musicslug
430 posts
 
I was also at that event but came away with a different conclusion. I'm all about LPs, but the digital playback was pretty amazing - even the non hi-rez. granted, all the gear was cost-no-object, but both the Ayre and Linn digital gear (the kind that you run off a hard drive) were orders of magnitude better than any digital I've ever heard. normally I'd have dismissed as hype things like the Linn guy saying that their box completely trounced their megabuck CD12, but I recommend you check it out for yourself. (it's insanely expensive too of course)

being an LP guy, I have to say that I'm psyched about the 'next step': use your great-sounding TT to record hi-rez, transfer to a hard drive or DVD disc, then play back through one of these new boxes - you'll be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and actual LP play, but you'll have all the convenience of hard-drive based music. (and you won't have to replace your kilobuck cartridge every two years either!)

and TVAD is so right. it was pretty sad as far as the actual music they had to use to demo this stuff - pretty much all downloads or specialty stuff (e.g. Linn recordings) you'd never really want to listen to. but if you have a killer LP collection and covet the convenience of digital, it's here.
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