WBF has been a little boring lately (for me anyway) so I thought I would start Sunday off with a thread that will stir things up a bit and make the digit lovers gnash their teeth a little. Unlike some professed digital haters that belong to WBF, I do ‘loves’ me some digital. It’s great for warming up the system and breaking in new gear. And I also have to confess to walking into my room for a listening session with my digital server playing music and feeling compelled to sit down and listen and enjoy what I’m hearing because it really sounds damn good. I’m also looking forward to hearing the DSD files I have acquired once I can get my hands on the Mytek Stereo 192 DAC that no one has in stock and see where that road takes me.
I thought about this last night as I was listening to my stereo and switching among source material and grinning at what I was hearing. There are more than a few well-heeled audiophiles on WBF who have made the practical decision to limit their stereo systems to a single digital source. Whether they want to believe it or not, they have not heard what their systems are truly capable of sounding like. We also have numerous people on this forum who own and play multiple sources both analog and digital, and none of those people have stepped forward and said that digital sounds best on their system and really makes it sing.* Why? Because it wouldn’t be true. I find this somewhat analogous to someone owning a Ferrari (or insert your favorite super car here) and deciding for practical reasons they are only going to use low-octane fuel and they are never going to drive it faster than 30 mph.
There are lots of valid practical reasons for not owning any source besides digital and I could list a bunch of them. However, you are still limiting the ultimate sound quality of your system if you can only play back the digits. As you switch from digital to LP and then to tape, it’s almost like a stair-step function with regards to increased fidelity and how much better your system sounds with each change. I do have to say that the stair-step from LP to tape is not as high as the step from digital to LP. In other words, the sound quality differences between LP and tape are not as great as the difference between digital and LP.
And the funny thing is that unless you own all three sources or at least two of them, you really can’t argue with my conclusions (Well, of course you can argue because opinions formed without knowledge and experience are expressed all the time). For those of you that own systems that are in the six-figure category and you only listen to digits, you really owe it to yourself to have a dear friend take the time and trouble to show up at your crib with their LP or tape rig and let you hear for yourself what you are missing.** If you do that, then you can come back with an informed opinion based on experience and tell me what your truth is.
And Frantz, I am looking forward to you finally getting your system up and running and having a good LP table/arm/cartridge again and being able to make real time observations of the sound quality in your system and not rely on the memories of what your old analog rig sounded like compared to your current digital setup. It should be interesting. Now back to your normal Sunday programming…
*I conducted an informal poll on WBF and asked members who owned all three sources to list their sources in order of sound quality. The funny thing was that people who only owned a single digital source felt compelled to chime in on my thread and express their hurt feelings at the exclusionary nature of the thread and wanting to let everyone know that their single choice was the right choice and that digital reigned supreme. Oh the irony…
**And yes, I arbitrarily picked a “six-figure” system because there are people on this forum who are high north into six-figure systems and have the disposable income to own multiple sources and source material. You don’t need to own a system that costs anywhere near six-figures in order to hear the differences among sources. My own system isn’t anywhere near six-figures and I know how stark the differences are. And, and, and, I used the term “dear friend” and I didn’t use that term loosely. Anyone who would take the time and trouble to schlep a turntable and phono stage or a R2R to your house is someone that cares about you a great deal.
I thought about this last night as I was listening to my stereo and switching among source material and grinning at what I was hearing. There are more than a few well-heeled audiophiles on WBF who have made the practical decision to limit their stereo systems to a single digital source. Whether they want to believe it or not, they have not heard what their systems are truly capable of sounding like. We also have numerous people on this forum who own and play multiple sources both analog and digital, and none of those people have stepped forward and said that digital sounds best on their system and really makes it sing.* Why? Because it wouldn’t be true. I find this somewhat analogous to someone owning a Ferrari (or insert your favorite super car here) and deciding for practical reasons they are only going to use low-octane fuel and they are never going to drive it faster than 30 mph.
There are lots of valid practical reasons for not owning any source besides digital and I could list a bunch of them. However, you are still limiting the ultimate sound quality of your system if you can only play back the digits. As you switch from digital to LP and then to tape, it’s almost like a stair-step function with regards to increased fidelity and how much better your system sounds with each change. I do have to say that the stair-step from LP to tape is not as high as the step from digital to LP. In other words, the sound quality differences between LP and tape are not as great as the difference between digital and LP.
And the funny thing is that unless you own all three sources or at least two of them, you really can’t argue with my conclusions (Well, of course you can argue because opinions formed without knowledge and experience are expressed all the time). For those of you that own systems that are in the six-figure category and you only listen to digits, you really owe it to yourself to have a dear friend take the time and trouble to show up at your crib with their LP or tape rig and let you hear for yourself what you are missing.** If you do that, then you can come back with an informed opinion based on experience and tell me what your truth is.
And Frantz, I am looking forward to you finally getting your system up and running and having a good LP table/arm/cartridge again and being able to make real time observations of the sound quality in your system and not rely on the memories of what your old analog rig sounded like compared to your current digital setup. It should be interesting. Now back to your normal Sunday programming…
*I conducted an informal poll on WBF and asked members who owned all three sources to list their sources in order of sound quality. The funny thing was that people who only owned a single digital source felt compelled to chime in on my thread and express their hurt feelings at the exclusionary nature of the thread and wanting to let everyone know that their single choice was the right choice and that digital reigned supreme. Oh the irony…
**And yes, I arbitrarily picked a “six-figure” system because there are people on this forum who are high north into six-figure systems and have the disposable income to own multiple sources and source material. You don’t need to own a system that costs anywhere near six-figures in order to hear the differences among sources. My own system isn’t anywhere near six-figures and I know how stark the differences are. And, and, and, I used the term “dear friend” and I didn’t use that term loosely. Anyone who would take the time and trouble to schlep a turntable and phono stage or a R2R to your house is someone that cares about you a great deal.