The character of analog and digital

@ghdprentice:

"When we go to choose audio equipment we go into analytical mode where we direct our minds eye (ear in this case)... to listen for differences flitting from sound to sound. Spend too much time picking out equipment like this only and this becomes how we appreciate a system… instead of being drawn into the music and making your decision from the perspective of the music."

I couldn't agree more! When doing serious seat-time with various components, over the years, those I've always come home with are those that have always drawn me out of critical listening mode and into pure music enjoyment quickest, often without me even realizing it, at first.

Yogiboy,

Based on the minuscule sales of classical vis a vis pop and rock in the general public, I think it’s a safe assumption.

I post very seldom but enjoy the more mature and informative responses which is why I also welcome Millercarbon back, and as I only listen to vinyl I enjoyed his comment!. Yes LP`s do vary far more in quality than digital musical reproduction however I wouldent want to think of how much I would have to spend on a digital system that gives me the same pleasure and involvement.

I had decent TT long time ago, but couldn’t stand pops and clicks. Perhaps it is possible to avoid them, but it is not my experience. Pops and clicks take me back to my room when I was already at the concert. As for R2R - layer to layer copying is often the problem and I could hear that. My friend worked in very large recording studio where they had separate department responsible to rewind thousands of tapes to avoid it. Many years ago they sold all the Studer tape recorders and went digital. No more rewinding silliness. Media is likely not a problem since I have few wonderful sounding CDs. CDs got bad rap from early attempts with wrong master tape frequency correction. Also, digital recording opened door to unlimited track recordings. They put microphones in front of every instrument to make sens of it later with poor results. Now they use only few microphones suspended over whole stage. Nyquist is not perfect since it applies to continuous waves only, but I doubt it makes any audible difference. I like digital for many practical reasons, but admit vinyl had its magic. I would also assume that older or very new vinyl has less compression being audiophile media. Compression is wonderful and necessary for average home system but we need less of it. I had hopes they will do it with more expensive media oriented toward audiophiles, like SACD, but greed killed the project (as it killed many other in the past).

@mikelavigne  “digital…won’t equal vinyl in my lifetime…”

You must have died about 35 years ago.  Thanks for making a reappearance on Halloween.