I have to ask this(actually, I thought I mentioned this in another thread.). It's been at least 25 years of digital. The equivalent in vinyl is 1975. I am currently listening to a pre-1975 album. It conveys the soul of music. Although digital may be more detailed, and even gives more detail than analog does(in a way), when will it convey the soul of music. This has escaped digital, as far as I can tell.
"Although digital may be more detailed, and even gives more detail than analog does(in a way), when will it convey the soul of music. This has escaped digital, as far as I can tell."
The point is we need to keep the heat for high rez. there is a seroius to say digital is already perfect or maybe even too good for the masses. Sampling rates are just part of the problem.
Puh-leeaze. Any piece of music that can be so easily killed just by digitization, well, it must not have been very soulful to begin with.
People who think vinyl is "soulful" and that CD's aren't, they clearly have no historical perspective. They're the same ones who would've argued during the days of wax cylinders that audio recording was anti-musical, and that music should be recorded only as sheet music. Yet somehow, the soul of music just continues to pervade all of these ignorant arguments.
I think that 24/192 hirez does get the soul, it is so much better than redbook. That said vinyl in a direct comparison still sounds.. like vinyl. But I think that a really good dac playing 24/192 files is certainly competitive with a good TT ( and the digital setup will cost less and be way more user friendly) is it as good as the state of the art in analog, well for what one of those would cost I think I'll take my Ferrari in black please :-)
I just sent my Sony XA5400ES to Dan at Modwright for some soul. Can't wait to hear his Ultimate Truth Mod...and I get a tube rectified external power supply as well!!
Longer note - I was reading the notes by Levinson in the Cello Palette EQ manual. Recording the tonal balance correctly in digital mastering varies. This is because the digital mastering equipment varies as well as equipment in home sound systems. The results are often of unenhanced, partially stripped sound quality that's variable from home to home when the engineers playback equipment doesn't match the sonics of home system. This may shed the most light on why individual CD's when recorded well, will perfectly match a particular individual home system, while not other systems.
The Palatte EQ is high end and has 6 frequency controls with +/- dB attenuations. Levinson says use all 5, using your ears, and quickly tune in best tonal sounds of each CD. In effect, your spinning dials just like a final master mixer. Although I don't find most EQ's as desireable, I feel this is a very sound explanation to why many CD's sound lifeless or partially stripped and a very well thought out way to correct it. I'll spin 5 high end dials to tune-out digital tonal system mismatches. This goes one step beyond a perfect set-up.
Palettes are rare and expensive. I did notice after a very careful set-up, a significantly better sound improvement. I placed my SVS Ultra-13 in the 10Hz tuning crossed at 50 hz to match mains at ear level directly behind the main seating position. It's very accurate. The 10 Hz tuning change sweetened the subs notes up close, squeezing them through one port like massive vocal cords. Very enjoyable. It also somehow enhanced the mains mids and highs resulting in better analog-like tonal imaging and clusters of unique sounds.
If anyone has good experiences using a sweet EQ in this manner, please pass to us. It would install between my digital source and Proceed AVP 2 +6 preamp. Thanks to all.
(Referring obliquely to first response) It seems for me anyway, The Sim Andromeda does. More so than Eclipse. I cannot identify all the attributes, but for one the timbre of instruments, dynamic contrast, detail, etc. Power conditioner helped (Running Springs Audio Dimitri im my case). AT a much less price point it seemed the Sony XA5400ES had some good midrange, and I would day soul, depends on how you identiry that. I tried that for a month in October 2009. Thanks. Bill
While I prefer vinyl/analog sources; I have heard players that do put the soul in digital recordings. I have one and it is musical as all get out. I'm even allowed to forget it is digital. Bought second hand it was still very expensive but I can listen for hours on end without fatigue which is a new experience for me while spinning discs. I wish I could do the same with vinyl but I can't afford a butler to flip the vinyl over to side two.
listen to a K2HD or XRCD 24; SACD perhaps. the former two play in regular CD players and in a good system sound phenomenal. Much better in fact than even most well recorded CDs. After listening to K2HD, I concluded there is no rationale reason for SACD. And, my Alesis CD recorder can record perfectly this awesome sound. May sound heretic, but that's what my ears are conveying to my brain............
Jabo - Not only they did't fall in love with Chinese people enough to sell them DVDs below cost but they admitted small profit at $1.25 Let me be generous, in spite of such admission, and agree that $3 is the price in China. What the heck - lets make it $5. Why do we have to pay $20?
What regional code is for? It is simply to prevent shipping DVDs back to US (with a profit) - no other reason.
the cost of replication does not cover the publising per unit, the cost of producing the record or cd in the first place (amortized),the artists' royalty per unit, the musicians' royalties per unit, sync rights per unit if dvd, marketing, distribution, healthcare for artists and employees, freight, sometimes tarrifs, and ultimately, the put-upon retailer must make something.....you simply have to do the math, in any region, in any country...these are intellectual properties, not bubble gum....a tragic crime in any country.
No Jaybo - They sell originall DVDs for $2 there. That what regional code was for. In 2006 Time Warner was selling DVDs for 10 yuan ($1.25) while Twentieth Century Fox was planning to sell DVDs for 20-25 yuan (about $3). Both companies admitted that profit will be very low and main reason is to "combat" piracy (read: better small profit than nothing). At price of $1.25 they still admitted profit - insane. Competition is phony (collude) and we're being screwed. At least piracy levels the field there and forces big companies to sell at normal prices (good for the people).
All royalties and cost of printing comes to about $1 per audio CD. Rest of it (remaining $14) is a profit. Even if you double production cost for SACD it is $2 versus $30 selling price.
Nothing new to it - a little bit of cornflakes and cardboard box ends up magically $4. TV station started investigation and next day they became silent. I suspect they were threatened to loose all advertising.
actually dual layers are nearly twice as much to manufacture. cd's, sacd's and dvd's contain royalty payments to artists, publishing royalties, marketing costs, e&o insurance, and numerous other guild payments....i'm sorry, but a 2 dollar dvd sold in china or anywhere is a pirated copy, unless its a cut-out and the royalties were already paid. sometimes cover art and/or an artista likeness needs to be licensed as well.
They sell us same DVDs for $20 that they sell in China for $2. In order to protect their insane profits they forced DVD player makers to play only one region (otherwise somebody would export DVDs from China to US). They would not sell in China (and other places)at loss. How is it possible that things like CDs or DVDs that supposed to cost couple of dollars cost so much - the same way breakfast serial cost $4 instead of $1 - phony competition and monopoly.
LPs tend to have better mixing/mastering (or are selected from good recordings to start with). Poorly recorded very low quality LPs won't sell since currently it is only audiophile market while CD will sell no matter how bad as long as music is popular. As Muralman said there are some exceptional CDs showing that media has potential and can challenge many LPs. Audiophiles don't have any buying power in CD sales and cannot influence quality of recordings. The only reason, in my opinion, for pushing better sounding schemes like HDCD or SACD was to bring very strong copy protection. SACD doesn't cost more to print than CD but they felt that charging 100% more is OK.
I don't know with absolute certainty; however, I believe redbook often gets an unwarranted bad rap - I've listened to some cd's that sounded great because what occurred upstream, i.e. recording and mastering, was great.
Tbg,I emailed Ori about your not being able to find his webpage. Mapman,I would like to have more time to listen to his battery-powered Pre/Dac in my system, but for me, you're right about a date that will live in infamy. Some questions still arise in my mind. I would think that somehow the low resolution of standard cd could be heard, but I don't think it will be disturbing. If microphoning would be less ping-pongey with digital, I think that would help with the illusion of music(I'm thinking about one of the Dire Straits cd's.) I think I might prefer listening to mostly digital, but Ori showed that analog is a teeny bit more relaxing, but digital is not tense now(I feel it in my throat.). Analog seemed to fill the spaces between sounds a little unnaturally(cloudy?). Tgb, consider yourself lucky, as I've never heard digital that was music until now.
Mmakshak, I have had a similar experience with my new Mac/Amarra/Firewire/Weiss Minerva. I have found the soundstage more precise, the top end sweeter and more extended, and the bass deeper and less one note in character than my vinyl system (Shindo Labs combo).
I sought to get more information on Oritek but their webpage cannot be found. Do you have a link?
What I didn't think was possible(I kept quiet, and was happily listening to[my much improved]analog.)has happened! I will have to verify this in my own system, and it is a prototype. I heard Ori's(Oritek Audio) battery-powered(and not just any battery)Pre/Dac. In fact, I was just discussing if digital was ever going to become music with him, when he used this. The main thing was that you could listen into(and all the way back)the music. The music was whole(like analog)-and not just individual sounds. I could actually live with this! Digital usually makes me tense(and that is my main objection to it). This Pre/Dac wasn't. We switched to analog(upon Ori's insistence), and this was the main difference: Analog was cloudier. Analog's voices maybe were a little more realistic. Separation was interesting. I would say that digital still slightly draws the music to the new sound a little unnaturally(I think this could be taken into account somehow in the recording process). I'm not sure if analog's separation was quite right, either. Analog was slightly(and I mean slightly)more relaxing. Anyway, bottom line, I think an analog-lover could live with this. Nothing I've heard(and I haven't heard everythig, but everyone "oohs" and "ahhs" over slight differences in digital, while it retains the same unlistenable characteristic)to date has made digital into music-until now. To give you an idea, I have heard the Berkeley DAC(modified). While it is closer to analog in sound, it does not cross the threshold into music(for me). I was a little sceptical when Ori asked me to hear his battery powered Pre/Dac, but I should have known better(the preamp section of his pre/dac is world class, his modified Stereo 70 is a poor man's Lamm). I just had no hope for digital as music until now.
I have a high end analog rig when I want to hear the passion and dynamics of the music I play this. I use a loricraft record cleaner and pops are virtually non existent
my digital rig is good and needed for much music not available on vinyl - it gets most of the elements but the weight around notes and strings especially can't come close
try a silent running audio platform under your cd player it will take the stress out of the component and make your digital more lifelike
music is where the soul of it is not the type of source although that can limit the enjoyment if not optimal
Guido, leave the pebbles on the beach--times will change again--as well as ye olde Zeitgeist and Weltanschaung. We have to go through this. I'll be holding thumbs for all of us...... Cheers, Detlof
Ah thank you Detlof. . . I think I need to get my humor detector looked after. . . I've been laid off last Thursday and I'm taking things far too seriously. . . do you think that taking a micro Brilliant Pebble a day for 30 days might help my uncharacteristicly grim Weltanschauung? I am thinking that if it does not help me directly, at least it will benefit the finances of old GK (grins!)
"unfortunately our neurophysiology in its richness and complexity transcends the trite definitions of 'analog' and 'digital'." Of course it does Guido.... we were just making fun for heavens's sake ((:
"to soften the look of HDTV program content" - yes, because some actors asked for it. Whatever they do result is incredible. Both, analog and OTA HDTV occupy the same 6.5MHz bandwidth but you cannot even compare picture quality.
I think many people are in "digital denial" and HDTV/Analog is a great example.
One would even argue that CRT-TV is better than HDTV (it has to - it's analog). It's not "edgy" or "bright" but has this pleasant softness and fuzziness....
This old argument of analog vs digital is getting more and more far fetched as time passes. . . unfortunately our neurophysiology in its richness and complexity transcends the trite definitions of 'analog' and 'digital'. . . I just hope no one starts invoking pop quantum mechanics as the next obvious facile mantra that just explains-it-all'. G.
Yea, but you guys forget, that ye olde braine converts it back to analog as the music hits our emotions or are you guys tickled by electric impulses???? (;
"What a shame that all mechanical hair movement in the cochlea is converted to nerve impulses in order to be sent to the brain (i.e. an analog to digital conversion, with individual nerves either firing or not)."
It is very high resolution digital in there at least. Thank you God!
They show this in the IMAX film about the human body...a must see for any audiophile!
It would all sound so much better if our ears were analog! What a shame that all mechanical hair movement in the cochlea is converted to nerve impulses in order to be sent to the brain (i.e. an analog to digital conversion, with individual nerves either firing or not).
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