I want to soften this up a little bit and comment about a few things that have been said. As most of you know, I’m invested in digital playback as well as analog. It’s not to the financial extent that some of you are invested in digital, but it’s an investment just the same. I certainly have more invested in digital software than I do in digital hardware. I have publically stated numerous times and even started a thread about how good I think Gary’s music server is. I enjoy digital and I do listen to it. I also don’t want to be wedded to a single source.
For those who said that digital has made advancements in sound quality as hardware and digital recording technology has improved, I agree. While I thought Myles’s statement that digital couldn’t get any worse was funny, I don’t share the same harsh feelings. However, for those of us who have multiple sources in our system because we want to be able to listen vinyl and digital or vinyl, tape and digital, I don’t recall a single person saying they prefer the sound of digital over analog. But that’s another story…
When you make a significant improvement to your vinyl playback system (and I know someone from the digital side will ask what ‘significant’ means and can I measure it and can I prove it because that is what digital objectivists do), it’s not one of those things where you have to sit down in your chair, close your eyes and concentrate as hard as you can in hopes that you might hear a difference. It’s usually so apparent It’s more like a “wow, I never heard that before” experience. I will concede that it can be a combination of lower distortion and digging more information from the grooves that causes the improvement.
I thought ACK made some really good points with regards to the improved tools at our disposal now that allow a precision of setup that could only have been dreamed of years ago. I also agree with ACK’s point that setting up a vinyl system to a high degree of precision takes a serious commitment from the owner and it’s not easy. ACK also touched on lower distortion electronics that get out of the way and let more information through. And I will freely admit that my setup is not at the level of perfection that ACK and some others have advanced to.
Tim on the other hand has postulated that if more information is coming through from vinyl, it’s not that we are actually retrieving more from the groove than we have been able to previously, it’s all because of the better tables, arms, and cartridges are lowering the distortion levels. I think that Tim clearly stated that we aren’t getting any new information from the grooves and that is what I and others here are disagreeing with.
Personally, if I didn’t own any digital playback gear and software and therefore never spent any time listening to it, I would feel rather odd proffering opinions on how digital sounded and challenging people on what they say they hear from digital. Because really, how the hell would I know? I wouldn’t.
But the inverse to my digital corollary above doesn’t hold true. We see plenty of examples of people who don’t own any analog gear proffering their opinions on how it sounds and what it can and can’t do and challenging analog lovers to constantly ‘prove’ what we can clearly hear.
An analogy that comes to mind is that of a guy who owns a Yugo and a Ferrari. Since he owns both and he drives both, he understands the differences between the two vehicles and how far apart their performance levels are. And yet when he tries to describe those differences to people who own Yugos, they demand proof that the Ferrari is actually a more high-performance vehicle. The guy that owns both the Yugo and the Ferrari just smiles because he obviously knows what the truth is. The Yugo people frown and look at the Ferrari owner with disdain because they know their Yugo sounds quieter than the Ferrari.
