2. digital
  3. 140819-117192

A very good ENGINEERING explanation of why analog can not be as good as digital..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzRvSWPZQYk

There will still be some flat earthers who refuse to believe it....
Those should watch the video a second or third time :-)
128x128cakyol
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

If we all had master tapes of the music we like and professional reel-to-reel decks, then analog would be king.  It's actually a lot cheaper and more convenient to do really good digital.  Every bit as good.  The master tapes are used to create the digital tracks after all.

I'm talking about Ethernet renderer with really low jitter driven by good software: Linn Kinsky/Minimserver/BubbleUPnP, using good cabling.

Those still trying to get the ultimate SQ from USB or a transport need not apply.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

audioengr
3,282 posts
 

The best quality digital doesn't go through a codec.

There is always a CODEC in the playback software.

Steve N.

Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
5,943 posts
 
audioengr

There is always a CODEC in the playback software.

If you consider a DAC a codec, I guess that’s true.


Post removed 
glupson
7,842 posts
 
"No matter what the resolution and data rate a digital representation of a sound, it will always be an approximation of the original event."
Isn't that true for analog (vinyl in most of the above posts), too? It is an approximation, attempt to reproduce, the original event. No matter what quality of an analog recording it is. Any recording is, essentially, fake. Be it analog or digital. You may prefer the way one is manipulated more than the other, but true representation they are not.

When it comes to "reproducing live concert (unamplified, let's say classical music)", I am yet to hear the equipment/sound-carrier combo that can sound as bland. Any recording seems to sound richer. I suspect that many of us who babble about how the system should sound would quit these debates if we went for concerts more often. Blacker blacks, rounder mids, all that poetry is gone in a concert hall. It may something to do with a venue, but not all of it.
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