What does it mean when people describe Digital as Sounding like "Analog"? Best term?

andromedaaudio

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CD's so easily replaced vinyl because listening to CD's is easy and getting great vinyl playback is hard. To get great vinyl sound you must have clean vinyl, good pressings, a decent record player, a decent tonearm a decent needle and decent phono stage.

I started collecting records because much of the hard bop and avantgarde jazz I listen to was not vinyl. I love my record collection, but it's a pain in the ass. Honestly the best investment I've made has been my KLAudio record cleaner.

I think you left out one , being able to adjust it all properly to have repeatable good results which takes skill
Reason i changed to R2R is just that , straightforward easy technique put a tape on and push a button :)

I hope my new levinson dac works wonders digiwise , im not anti digital
 
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jeff1225

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I think you left out one , being able to adjust it all properly to have repeatable good results which takes skill
Reason i changed to R2R is just that , straightforward easy technique put a tape on and push a button :)

I hope my new levinson dac works wonders digiwise , im not anti digital
I would agree with you 100%. There is an art to turntable set up and adjustment that takes a long time to master. I've been doing it for 20 years and I believe that I've only learned 80% of what there is to know.

I'd also say that you can't evaluate a record by just seeing it. Many, especially classical records, have been damaged on their inner grooves due to misaligned tonearms.
 

Empirical Audio

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These examples of water running, rain on a tin roof, audience applause, fire crackling, etc are called texture sounds in the acoustics research literature & are used as examples of how auditory perception uses summary statistics to analyse & categorise them. I extrapolate this function to suggest that we use it to some extent in all our auditory perception. Knowing how biological organisms are efficient in their use of their limited resources, it seems that when we discover a working mechanism like this it is seldom just being used for a very specific scenario like these specific examples

I am in the process of comparing two DAC's that I have designed. They both render a very clear, dynamic and separated image with great depth and width.

The interesting thing is that one delivers a more "organic" sound for lack of a better adjective. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but one is just more pleasing and exciting to listen to. It is maybe the balance in frequencies or the balance in dynamics across frequencies. The frequency response to steady-state signals is essentially flat for both DACs, so it's more likely the dynamic response. It is probably also an artifact of the D/A conversion and I/V conversion, if any.

I believe it is this balance in dynamics at different frequencies that sets even great digital systems apart from one another. This is a result of voltage regulators that do not respond the same at all frequencies and of decoupling capacitor combinations that do not deliver di/dt currents the same at all frequencies. It's the combination of regulators and the right decoupling caps that make this possible. Voltage regulators are never perfect and finding really good decoupling caps is a challenge as well. It is truly a black art to achieve a uniform dynamic response across all audio frequencies.

Digital has the capability to deliver a more dynamic presentation than analog, and it has extensions both in treble and bass compared to analog as well as a lower noise floor. The RIAA curve for analog was developed because in order to achieve the dynamics of the actual recording, the stylus would be propelled out of the groove without using any EQ. Digital has it's warts as well, being mostly high-frequency artifacts of the sampling conversion. Ultimately, vinyl is more limiting technically than digital, in terms of dynamics, frequency response and noise floor.

This kind of behavior makes it very difficult to compare digital to analog and even digital to digital.
 
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microstrip

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I would agree with you 100%. There is an art to turntable set up and adjustment that takes a long time to master. I've been doing it for 20 years and I believe that I've only learned 80% of what there is to know. (...)

IMHO it depends on your equipment choices. We can have top turntables, tonearms and cartridges that are quite straightforward to align. However if our cartridge is an half sphere without any straight line parallel to the cantilever you need a lot of expertise to align it.
 

Mike Lavigne

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IMHO it depends on your equipment choices. We can have top turntables, tonearms and cartridges that are quite straightforward to align. However if our cartridge is an half sphere without any straight line parallel to the cantilever you need a lot of expertise to align it.

from my years of owning 10 Vdh Colibri's where none of them have cantilevers aligned to the body, i never align to the cartridge body, only to the cantilever.
 
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microstrip

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from my years of owning 10 Vdh Colibri's where none of them have cantilevers aligned to the body, i never align to the cartridge body, only to the cantilever.

I also had this problem with a Vdh - I sent it back after the first 200 hours with a note and it was returned perfectly aligned. I have rejected a couple of cartridges of other brands because of this problem, all I currently own are well aligned.
 

jkeny

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I am in the process of comparing two DAC's that I have designed. They both render a very clear, dynamic and separated image with great depth and width.

The interesting thing is that one delivers a more "organic" sound for lack of a better adjective. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but one is just more pleasing and exciting to listen to. It is maybe the balance in frequencies or the balance in dynamics across frequencies. The frequency response to steady-state signals is essentially flat for both DACs, so it's more likely the dynamic response. It is probably also an artifact of the D/A conversion and I/V conversion, if any.

I believe it is this balance in dynamics at different frequencies that sets even great digital systems apart from one another. This is a result of voltage regulators that do not respond the same at all frequencies and of decoupling capacitor combinations that do not deliver di/dt currents the same at all frequencies. It's the combination of regulators and the right decoupling caps that make this possible. Voltage regulators are never perfect and finding really good decoupling caps is a challenge as well. It is truly a black art to achieve a uniform dynamic response across all audio frequencies.
Yes, the dynamic response of voltage regulators is a weakness even the SOTA LT3042 regulators - they seem to generate noise under dynamic current conditions which may well result in noise modulation patterned in correlation with the frequencies in music? I've noticed the same issue when I used LiFePo4 batteries directly powering DAC chips - when a SOTA regulator was used between battery & DAC the sound noticeably deteriorated. Same applies to supercapacitor direct power. It's likely the feedback loop on the output stage of the voltage regs giving rise to this noise modulation?

I prefer to find a solution which is more direct but effective

Digital has the capability to deliver a more dynamic presentation than analog, and it has extensions both in treble and bass compared to analog as well as a lower noise floor. The RIAA curve for analog was developed because in order to achieve the dynamics of the actual recording, the stylus would be propelled out of the groove without using any EQ. Digital has it's warts as well, being mostly high-frequency artifacts of the sampling conversion. Ultimately, vinyl is more limiting technically than digital, in terms of dynamics, frequency response and noise floor.

This kind of behaviour makes it very difficult to compare digital to analogue and even digital to digital.
Well as I said digital may be it's own worst enemy in this regard? What I mean is that reducing the noise floor can lead to revealing noise modulation which could well have been present in analogue but wasn't perceived because of the higher noise floor. Judged from the perspective of auditory perception, a fixed noise floor below a certain level is of little importance to perception, we don't notice it but a pattern of modulation at a lower level can be more readily perceived. After all, the world from an auditory perspective has a high noise floor which doesn't encroach on our perceptions but a patterned of modulating noise from anything becomes an annoyance as our attention is regularly triggered by it.
 
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tima

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What I'm suggesting is that before we consciously think about the timbre of an instrument & whether it accurately matches our memory of the live instrument, our analytic engine has done a lot of work subconsciously. This work at the subconscious level is very basic but also very complex.

It's best to use an analogy to explain what I mean - imagine you are sitting at the edge of a swimming pool with only your two feet dipped in the water & you can't see or hear. There are many people in the pool splashing, moving around, swimming, etc. All these pool activities happening at the same time cause composite waves which arrive at your feet. Working out where people are & what they are doing in the pool just based on the arriving waves at the two feet is the equivalent to what auditory processing is doing. So in other words out of the mixture of waveforms, the ones that the swimmer is creating is identified & grouped together out of the composite mix of waves & this grouping is maintained as the swimmer moves through the pool. The same applies to all the people/objects creating waves, each is separately identified just by their waveform not just as a once off but on an ongoing basis. As you can see this is a very complex inference engine which requires many past examples from which to learn how waveforms in pools behave with different people/objects & actions creating the waves - so it's a heuristic inference engine.

So an internal working model is built based on the best fit to the sensed waves. This model has within it expectations of how these waves will behave (the heuristics element). But what happens if a wave arrives which doesn't properly fit into the existing model or more likely our best fit analysis was wrong & only now discovered based on an arriving wave which doesn't fit? The working model has to change to best accommodate this . (This is what is meant by our perceptions are an interpretation of what's out there & really a best guess at any point in time (usually fairly accurate or accurate enough for our continued existence in the world). It's not necessary for it to be highly accurate, rather it needs to be fast & adapted to our needs.)

This is the job auditory processing is performing at a subconscious level & a working model created in real-time representing the current auditory objects & tracking their movement/progress over time all at the subconscious level. All this is happening before we even come to consciously consider whether the timbre of an instrument is correct (in our judgement)

So when we listen to our 2 channel playback systems we are suspending some of the rules & expectations in this analysis - much the same as we do when looking at TV, video, etc. Listening to our 2 channel stereo creates a working model which just about satisfies enough criteria to conclude it is realistic - in other words it is just close enough to the working model that would be created if we were listening to the same event live, that we can more easily enter into the engagement/immersion state that we could easily do if we were at the live event (I'm using "live event" for the sake of shorthand). if there is some anomaly in the sound from our reproduction system that perception has to change it's working model then the more this happens the more energy is consumed & more fatigue/disinterest/discomfort results (again this is happening subconsciously)

But I believe 2 channel stereo is a precarious thing on the edge of this division between "realism" & blabla/uninteresting sound - it takes a lot of the small things to be correct in the reproduced sound to satisfy this criteria. It's a surrogate for reality in much the same way as the the actual recording is a surrogate for a musical event

IMO, this explains a lot about this hobby but from a different perspective perhaps?

Yes, I agree that we are transported when listening to a good system & even music we are not familiar with is interesting - maybe not as interesting/engaging as music we know & love but still there's enough realism in it to engage us. My quip about the sound of background trains was really to point out that this detail isn't the goal but rather that realism/engagement is the goal. I do believe that this sort of low level detail is necessary for realism

I'm considering this at a lower level initially as you see above & what I'm suggesting is that from babies onwards we absorb the world of sound, correlate it with the world of images & with these two senses build internal models of how objects behave in the world both in their visual aspects & in their auditory aspects. So a bell sound has a sharp attack & a long decay (not the other way around) - a small bell produces a higher freq than a large bell, etc. In the visual model I think of a scene from Father Ted "small cow or far away"

I don't think this defines preference as it happens to everybody as part of the development of our senses from birth. With regard to exposure to our replay systems, yes I think we become familiar with its sound signature & in that way we evaluate new devices inserted into the system. Listening to live music on a daily basis should instil in us an innate expertise in how instruments/voices sound, I guess?

With regard to your legs-in-pool-example and its analogy to sound, my thought is while much of this is learning some of it, more rudimentary, may be built in, innate or a product of long long evolution. Here I'm thinking of our ability to locate sounds in space, where they are coming from. Granted the ear/brain system is operating, but how much of it is learned and how much can we simply do because we're built for it. The newest of babies can tell whether a noise is in front or in back of them. Another example might be our detection of loudness. I'm not ready to embrace Locke's tabula rasa, the mind as a wholly blank slate upon which nature writes.

Then to make a big extrapolation, I'll ask are there what may be called 'rules of human hearing?' Predilections we don't learn or choose to have, whose violation leads perception of music away from the limbic/emotional centers of the brain toward the analytic/intellectual brain functions. Ralph Karsten discusses this in his white paper 'Paradigms in Amplifier Design' using the application of negative feedback and odd-ordered harmonic generation.
 

jkeny

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With regard to your legs-in-pool-example and its analogy to sound, my thought is while much of this is learning some of it, more rudimentary, may be built in, innate or a product of long long evolution. Here I'm thinking of our ability to locate sounds in space, where they are coming from. Granted the ear/brain system is operating, but how much of it is learned and how much can we simply do because we're built for it. The newest of babies can tell whether a noise is in front or in back of them. Another example might be our detection of loudness. I'm not ready to embrace Locke's tabula rasa, the mind as a wholly blank slate upon which nature writes.
Yes, I agree that it appears we come with certain innate machinery configured for learning this specific functionality. The auditory learning even starts in the womb - newborn babies cry with the cadence of the language they were born into suggesting that they have absorbed this cadence while in the womb.

Another factor of note - babies up to 6 weeks(?) are able to distinguish certain speech intonations (in Chinese, for instance) which they lose if not hearing those intonations regularly.

Analogies are always flawed but what I was trying to convey with the pool analogy was the puzzle our auditory processing has to solve & has to do so in real time i.e using just the nerve impulses coming from our binaural sense, identify the nerve impulse that should be grouped together as belonging to each sound object in the sound stream & be able to track the movements & changes of these multiple sound objects - something we do naturally & subconsciously but there is energy expended in this process

One of the factors I didn't mention specifically is that this is an ill-formed problem i.e there isn't sufficient information in the nerve impulse stream to be able to analyse it to one unique solution so there are multiple best guess representations - at any point in time there is one favoured mode/representation, the one considered the best fit but based on newly arriving impulses this favoured representation/model may be superseded by a new favoured model.

In other words, we are constantly in a state of unknowing which if exacerbated by our playback systems subtle errors (as Steve pointed out probably the dynamic unfolding of sounds) it's no wonder we suffer fatigue from listening to some playback systems, typically digital audio systems

Then to make a big extrapolation, I'll ask are there what may be called 'rules of human hearing?' Predilections we don't learn or choose to have, whose violation leads perception of music away from the limbic/emotional centers of the brain toward the analytic/intellectual brain functions. Ralph Karsten discusses this in his white paper 'Paradigms in Amplifier Design' using the application of negative feedback and odd-ordered harmonic generation.
My whole premise is that auditory perception has been built based on our observation (through our senses) of the sonic behaviour of real world objects - the same applies to vision. So the rules/models are subconsciously built from how the nerve impulse patterns correlate to observed objects/behaviours. Once this has been sufficiently established, take away the visual cue & we can still recognise the object from the nerve patterns arriving at & being analysed by the auditory cortex & elsewhere in the brain. So, yes, the pattern of harmonics & ratio of odd to even falls into this description - if it is not found in nature then it will be treated as incongruous by our auditory perception. But because the whole system is working on a best guess type of uncertainty then our auditory perceptions are not black & white - it's not right or wrong - it's a range of rightness/wrongness - hence we can be perfectly happy with our systems until we hear something which better satisfies these criteria & is perceived as more "right". Because this is so fungible we can also live with systems that we believe are perfect but aren't - we've all had that experience of remembering back in time to our systems we mistakenly thought were perfect but weren't.

This is a simplistic description of what I have gathered is the process
 
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Migo

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SOUND LIAISON ,renown for their high resolution digital downloads, has mastered one of their latest releases to tape.
In order to get a little extra 'mojo' we decided to create the DXD Master using a Studer A80 analog reel to reel tape machine running at 15ips.
I have the DXD download and can confirm that it sounds very warm, it reminds me of some of my late 50' early 60' recordings, it has that kind of vibe.
But like Thelonious Monk said: ''Talking about music is like dancing about architecture''.
How do you put words to sound? But it is maybe their most ''analogue'' sounding digital album:)
https://www.soundliaison.com/index.php
 

Empirical Audio

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Yes, the dynamic response of voltage regulators is a weakness even the SOTA LT3042 regulators - they seem to generate noise under dynamic current conditions which may well result in noise modulation patterned in correlation with the frequencies in music? I've noticed the same issue when I used LiFePo4 batteries directly powering DAC chips - when a SOTA regulator was used between battery & DAC the sound noticeably deteriorated. Same applies to supercapacitor direct power. It's likely the feedback loop on the output stage of the voltage regs giving rise to this noise modulation?

I don't use any of the typical regulators. They are Hynes-types that I designed in my top DAC and new TI linears in my new SOTAPRAT DAC. I also gave up on batteries and supercaps years ago. Fast regulators beat them.

Well as I said digital may be it's own worst enemy in this regard? What I mean is that reducing the noise floor can lead to revealing noise modulation which could well have been present in analogue but wasn't perceived because of the higher noise floor. Judged from the perspective of auditory perception, a fixed noise floor below a certain level is of little importance to perception, we don't notice it but a pattern of modulation at a lower level can be more readily perceived. After all, the world from an auditory perspective has a high noise floor which doesn't encroach on our perceptions but a patterned of modulating noise from anything becomes an annoyance as our attention is regularly triggered by it.

I don't believe the issue is noise at low levels. The noise floor is dead-quiet with both of my DACs. I believe the issue is the ability of the regulator and decoupling caps to provide di/dt currents at all frequencies equally in response to the changing music signal.

This is not just a DAC problem, but also preamps and amps. It is just more difficult to deliver di/dt current to digital electronics because of the high frequencies and edge-rates involved.[/QUOTE]
 

jkeny

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I don't use any of the typical regulators. They are Hynes-types that I designed in my top DAC and new TI linears in my new SOTAPRAT DAC. I also gave up on batteries and supercaps years ago. Fast regulators beat them.
I know you use PH regulator design. My customers from way back wouldn't agree that the PH regulators beat LiFePo4 batteries - in this role they are neck & neck - supercaps are another level but let's not get into one is better than the other - there are a few paths to the same end destination.'



I don't believe the issue is noise at low levels. The noise floor is dead-quiet with both of my DACs.
Interested in how you measured the noise floor during the sort of dynamic load conditions that music signal presents.
I believe the issue is the ability of the regulator and decoupling caps to provide di/dt currents at all frequencies equally in response to the changing music signal.
What happens to the output signal when the PS current isn't delivered equally at all frequencies during composite music signals? Does it change the attack portion of the sound, the sound envelope, something else? Have you measured this? I'm just wondering if this is not saying the same as me?

This is not just a DAC problem, but also preamps and amps. It is just more difficult to deliver di/dt current to digital electronics because of the high frequencies and edge-rates involved.
Yes, I agree - digital audio requires low voltage, very fast signals but at surprisingly high current particularly when packetised data is being processed - a bursty current scenario.

It may well be that we are both correct - noise floor modulation & di/dt current delivery anomalies?
 

Empirical Audio

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I know you use PH regulator design. My customers from way back wouldn't agree that the PH regulators beat LiFePo4 batteries - in this role they are neck & neck - supercaps are another level but let's not get into one is better than the other - there are a few paths to the same end destination.'

These are not PH regulators. They are my version of PH regulators, much faster. I licensed the technology.

The one thing that Hynes type designs do that no other regulator does is to use a reference voltage that is not referenced to ground. It's floating, balanced. This makes them very resistant to noise on the input voltage.

Interested in how you measured the noise floor during the sort of dynamic load conditions that music signal presents. What happens to the output signal when the PS current isn't delivered equally at all frequencies during composite music signals? Does it change the attack portion of the sound, the sound envelope, something else? Have you measured this? I'm just wondering if this is not saying the same as me?

Very difficult to measure, but not impossible. The attack isn't quite right if the power delivery is not optimum. Not live sounding. Impulse response will probably show this, but only at high frequencies. At mids and bass frequencies, the reaction time of the regulator needs to be consistent. It's usually easy to get the mids to deliver the transients, but highs and bass are the problem. Highs dont have the "slam-factor" and the bass is muddy if the regulator/decoupling reaction times are not as good as the mids reaction time.
 

jkeny

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These are not PH regulators. They are my version of PH regulators, much faster. I licensed the technology.

The one thing that Hynes type designs do that no other regulator does is to use a reference voltage that is not referenced to ground. It's floating, balanced. This makes them very resistant to noise on the input voltage.
yes, I knew you licensed the design

Very difficult to measure, but not impossible. The attack isn't quite right if the power delivery is not optimum. Not live sounding. Impulse response will probably show this, but only at high frequencies. At mids and bass frequencies, the reaction time of the regulator needs to be consistent. It's usually easy to get the mids to deliver the transients, but highs and bass are the problem. Highs dont have the "slam-factor" and the bass is muddy if the regulator/decoupling reaction times are not as good as the mids reaction time.
Would love to see any measurements you have done which show this - by PM if you prefer?
 

Joe Cohen

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I am in the process of comparing two DAC's that I have designed. They both render a very clear, dynamic and separated image with great depth and width.

The interesting thing is that one delivers a more "organic" sound for lack of a better adjective. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but one is just more pleasing and exciting to listen to. It is maybe the balance in frequencies or the balance in dynamics across frequencies. The frequency response to steady-state signals is essentially flat for both DACs, so it's more likely the dynamic response. It is probably also an artifact of the D/A conversion and I/V conversion, if any.

I believe it is this balance in dynamics at different frequencies that sets even great digital systems apart from one another. This is a result of voltage regulators that do not respond the same at all frequencies and of decoupling capacitor combinations that do not deliver di/dt currents the same at all frequencies. It's the combination of regulators and the right decoupling caps that make this possible. Voltage regulators are never perfect and finding really good decoupling caps is a challenge as well. It is truly a black art to achieve a uniform dynamic response across all audio frequencies.

Digital has the capability to deliver a more dynamic presentation than analog, and it has extensions both in treble and bass compared to analog as well as a lower noise floor. The RIAA curve for analog was developed because in order to achieve the dynamics of the actual recording, the stylus would be propelled out of the groove without using any EQ. Digital has it's warts as well, being mostly high-frequency artifacts of the sampling conversion. Ultimately, vinyl is more limiting technically than digital, in terms of dynamics, frequency response and noise floor.

This kind of behavior makes it very difficult to compare digital to analog and even digital to digital.

I believe that Steve is on the right track when he says it is likely the balance of dynamics that set the one DAC apart from the other. I include in my definition of dynamics the evolution of a sound or group of sounds in three dimensional space. So it is not simply a mater of amplitude but of the physical size, 3 dimensional nature and location of the event as it emerges in time from nothing to its fullest expression and then recedes back again. Along with that come evolving colors, highlights and shadows and the manner in which the primary event excites the space it is recorded in and how that, in turn, arises and decays.

The kind of research and the comparisons of near identically spec'ed components that Steve is making are essential to advance the state of the art.

I wanted to add my experience of comparing analog to digital. Until quite recently I have been a firm believer that in the manner of believability, presence, replication of the most subtle textures, reverberations and decays that analog always wins. In many ways that still holds, but I did have my world shaken during one particular listening session at one of my customer's systems. His is all digital with top dCS gear and the latest top Aurender server and Wilson Alexx speakers. Warning, I am about to discuss one of my products, which gave rise to this experience. You can read about it all in depth here in my blog: 'Shaken and Stirred'. This is our latest PranaWire creation. It is called the Annapurna Collector/Platform. It not only provides world class vibration control but also absorbs and shunts high frequency noise away from the component. While it may seem that the vibration control forum would be the place to post, and I will post there as well, there is extreme relevance for this thread because hearing this device for the first time in his system, blurred the line between digital and analog performance for me and frankly, at least temporarily, put me in a state of confusion. Not only were the qualities of a high performance analog system present, but I was moved nearly to tears hearing the third and fourth movements of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Here's the relevant point, the Annapurna was placed under the SMc VRE-1C preamplifier. It was not under any of the digital gear. (Note: The customer has since added 5 additional Annapurna Collector Platforms each one replacing another high quality platform. I cannot go there to hear it due to shelter in place. Frustrating. I have one in the reference system here, which is spectacular, but I am having a hard time imagining from his descriptions what 6 of them are doing over there.)

What are the implications if the Collector/Platform is under the preamplifier, but the sound reached a pinnacle that blurred the lines between digital and analog? My thinking is that artifacts of the digital process are delivered to the preamplifier along with the converted output. These artifacts whatever their nature, frequency and amplitude add a measure of smearing that can only be experienced by hearing the effect of their removal. Thinking about the manner in which the digital signal affects and interacts with other components in a system may give insight in to how to bring out the best that digital has to offer. AnnapurnaAngleSm.jpg
 
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Ultrafast69

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What do people really mean by that?

View attachment 64460
My take on the question is there confused. Most likely they are listening to a digital mastered copy on vinyl and comparing it to the digital and believe their efforts made things equal.
 

thedudeabides

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Regretfully, most digital does not sound natural.

Listen to a Luxman CDP. I have the D-06u and there are no hints of edginess, harshness, etc. It sounds "natural" whatever that means. I prefer the term "musical". And to my ears and my system, it sounds much more musical than Esoteric and dCS, both of which I auditioned for 6 weeks and returned / sold.
 
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Ultrafast69

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I “think” the term sounding more analog in a digital setting is brought on by digital believers wanting to feel good about their system using the term analog as an objective.

Analog/vinyl produces a sound exclusive to its own right, and as I have learned how the native format was recorded illustrates the separation. Although even analog recorded from a digital source does sound good as well, it is just different.

Note; I am a believer and enjoy digital, I worked hard on building a solid hard to beat foundation.
 

Al M.

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I “think” the term sounding more analog in a digital setting is brought on by digital believers wanting to feel good about their system using the term analog as an objective.

Didn't think about that. If I want to feel good about my digital based system, I ponder how very well it communicates the music (gosh, I'm addicted), and how much it reminds me of unamplified live music. Not that it exactly sounds like it, but neither does analog.

Analog isn't a reference for me anymore; it was so partially in the past.

And hey, I'm listening to analog anyway, since analog wave forms are obviously what comes out of my DAC. Perhaps that's why digital sounds analog ;).
 

kach22i

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As I clean up my LP playing with a linear tonearm, enzyme enriched cleaning fluid, air ionizer, and a crazy good antistatic brush - have I sanitized the experience?

Quote:
A slight imperfection in a groove is where the humanity is. Imperfections are key. If something is esthetically perfect it stops having meaning.
End Quote.

From here: (John Waite of The Babys/Bad English)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/19/john-waite/

He was not referencing vinyl playback, rather the studio recording process.

I craved perfection, now I both lament and praise past imperfections?

Not yet, but I imagine there is a distant line out there waiting for me to cross it.
 

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  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

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