Hi
My last (late) analog components are no more. I will completely move toward digital, unless what I am looking for in term of pure music does not exist in digital format or the mastering job is really botched an, alas, too common occurrence. I have beginning to re-acquire some of the Mercury Living Presence that weren't on a HDD.
This thread was prompted by a Remark Audioguy made about Marty's ( I am right OB) system. A definitely and unashamedly digital system with room correction as well. I have no doubt that correctly done Digital right now is superior to analog. Several people have commented on an experience in which someone used a digital (CD?) Chain to copy LPs made from a Sirius TT; from most accounts the digital chain preserved what the LPs character which would suggest that the chain was truly transparent.
There is no doubt that our evaluation is very subjective but in order to make sense we need to interject some objectivity in the debate. Not objectivity in the sense of measurements. Being objective does not mean measuring at all cost, some things are not measurable. What we may need to do is to try to remove our emotions and prejudices from our observation. There are tools for that and one of them is the dreaded (for many “subjectivists”) double-blind test. I would simply call for a simple blind test, simply not knowing what’s playing and listen to a recording of an LP made through a good digital chain, some of these readily available in a decent studio. I would go with a CD-level first.
On a more realistic level, it came to me listening to the aforementioned Mercury Living Presence CDs. TO me the Digital tended to sound truer, closer to what I hear at a good concert hall. The Paul Paray and the Detroit SO playing Franck Symphony and Rachmaminov Symph. 2 Catalog: 434368 is prime example of how transparent the digitalizing medium was , when supervised by a masterful person such as the late Wilma Cozart Fine. And the long list of Reference Recording and .. TO me a long list. I can understand the nostalgia but I think Digital is there and going nowhere but up. There will be attempt at great TT but the medium has already reached its apogee. We can make the better TT we know how but the cutting lathe are not even that good and will likely not get any better plus the whole process is scientifically flawed , not that digital is perfect simply that it can get only better, it is has not plateau-ed, not yet anyway. I am ready to surmise that today’s DAC are getting better and less expensive. Several even in this forum can attest to the quality of the reproduction brought by something like the Apogee mini-DAC or the various Weiss Engineering products and there are others… The transport of choice , capable of trumping the best Transports we can muster seem to be an Apple Mac Book Pro with the Amarra software ( I have my reservation on the Amarra but this is for later)…
We are in living interesting times. I want to see High End Audio evolve not keep itself in obscurity and arcana. We have a very good medium, right there, right now. It should be exploited, High End Audio should push the boundary of what is possible in reproducing music in a home.. There is a lot to do in speaker design, even in truly digital amplifiers, speaker mechanical aberrations and limitations can be corrected with digital (ask Marty ?). By the way, I have nothing against tubes in amplification. I suspect they are doing interesting psycho-acoustically , I do prefer the better SS but tubes can be very realistic .. What I think is that digital has arrived and it should be embraced .. Your opinions? Viewpoints?
Frantz
My last (late) analog components are no more. I will completely move toward digital, unless what I am looking for in term of pure music does not exist in digital format or the mastering job is really botched an, alas, too common occurrence. I have beginning to re-acquire some of the Mercury Living Presence that weren't on a HDD.
This thread was prompted by a Remark Audioguy made about Marty's ( I am right OB) system. A definitely and unashamedly digital system with room correction as well. I have no doubt that correctly done Digital right now is superior to analog. Several people have commented on an experience in which someone used a digital (CD?) Chain to copy LPs made from a Sirius TT; from most accounts the digital chain preserved what the LPs character which would suggest that the chain was truly transparent.
There is no doubt that our evaluation is very subjective but in order to make sense we need to interject some objectivity in the debate. Not objectivity in the sense of measurements. Being objective does not mean measuring at all cost, some things are not measurable. What we may need to do is to try to remove our emotions and prejudices from our observation. There are tools for that and one of them is the dreaded (for many “subjectivists”) double-blind test. I would simply call for a simple blind test, simply not knowing what’s playing and listen to a recording of an LP made through a good digital chain, some of these readily available in a decent studio. I would go with a CD-level first.
On a more realistic level, it came to me listening to the aforementioned Mercury Living Presence CDs. TO me the Digital tended to sound truer, closer to what I hear at a good concert hall. The Paul Paray and the Detroit SO playing Franck Symphony and Rachmaminov Symph. 2 Catalog: 434368 is prime example of how transparent the digitalizing medium was , when supervised by a masterful person such as the late Wilma Cozart Fine. And the long list of Reference Recording and .. TO me a long list. I can understand the nostalgia but I think Digital is there and going nowhere but up. There will be attempt at great TT but the medium has already reached its apogee. We can make the better TT we know how but the cutting lathe are not even that good and will likely not get any better plus the whole process is scientifically flawed , not that digital is perfect simply that it can get only better, it is has not plateau-ed, not yet anyway. I am ready to surmise that today’s DAC are getting better and less expensive. Several even in this forum can attest to the quality of the reproduction brought by something like the Apogee mini-DAC or the various Weiss Engineering products and there are others… The transport of choice , capable of trumping the best Transports we can muster seem to be an Apple Mac Book Pro with the Amarra software ( I have my reservation on the Amarra but this is for later)…
We are in living interesting times. I want to see High End Audio evolve not keep itself in obscurity and arcana. We have a very good medium, right there, right now. It should be exploited, High End Audio should push the boundary of what is possible in reproducing music in a home.. There is a lot to do in speaker design, even in truly digital amplifiers, speaker mechanical aberrations and limitations can be corrected with digital (ask Marty ?). By the way, I have nothing against tubes in amplification. I suspect they are doing interesting psycho-acoustically , I do prefer the better SS but tubes can be very realistic .. What I think is that digital has arrived and it should be embraced .. Your opinions? Viewpoints?
Frantz
