Tmsorosk,
Here's my experience with digital. I've heard emmlabs digital gear in someone elses system. A audio mechphisto one box player. A wadia 301 and i currently own a aero prima one box cd player.
The emmlabs combo , i believe it should be considered state of the art and is , what? 20,000? From memory, those systems were very resolving of instrumental timbral information but relative to what i am currently getting in my system now cannot deliver the same DEGREE of timbrel realism. I found that digital could give a high approximation of timbrel realism but in the final analysis it could not imitate the sounds of instruments that utilize woods, metals like a superb vinyl set up could.
A reference that i like to use is my all REAL wood gibson j45 and a unamplified marine band harmonica, unamplified in a quiet room. I pluck a string on my guitar and i hear the sitka spruce bodies midband warmth and its earthy tones. Some guitars are made from synthetic materials and they just cannot produce the tone of real wood guitars. Its those kinds of subtle differences that i strive to reproduce.
I'm just of the persuasion that "only materials that vibrate" can reproduce ideally "materials that vibrate"
Pluck a single string on my guitar once and let it decay til its silent. I would argue that that deceptively simple sound is extremely complex and has many components to it. (reflect on it for a moment)...Its sonic signature if stripped apart is very complex and extremely unique.
So again...I'm just of the persuasion that "only materials that vibrate" can BEST reproduce "materials that vibrate"ie, instruments made of wood, metals, ie guitars, pianos, harmonicas,etc.
What i mean is.... because cartridges are transducers made of MATERIALS,ie, wood, titanium, acrylics, that ARE INTENDED TO VIBRATE with the intention of, passing on information to imitate MATERIALS that VIBRATE themselves,a wood guitar for example , they have a inherent advantage because they are the same "things" AND a optical laser is not a material meant to "transcribe" information by the means of how it vibrates , it is therefore inherently inferior. I hold this belief in humility.
And...
Because cartridges are mechanical beasts who's performance is dependent on minuscule set up parameters it is easier to get them wrong more so than digital.
Someone can have a 5000 dollar cart, a 7000 dollar arm, a 10000 dollar turntable, etc, etc, but if the basic set up is slightly out or there is no synergy, your sound might be worse than a basic wadia 301 one box cd player! but that does not mean digital is better as i'm sure many have wrongly concluded.
I'm talking here about some very fine differences and very fine distinguishing cues and nuances. Maybe we feel we are talking about the same level of playback but in reality are not and thats the problem. Maybe all the analog set ups you heard were not executed very well.
I want to qualify all my comments on this thread by saying, that the things i have to say are dependent on how many or how few different "incarnations" of digital playback i have heard. That i have no comment on how good or how bad the emmlabs or any component is, i prefer to only comment on how those sounded in the context of a particular system.
So, though it may appear that i am making blanket statements, i am in fact not. I'm simply sharing my experiences in the narrow scope of my exposure to different sonic signatures of different systems.
Tim, in the final analysis I think and believe that each systems sound must be judged irregardless of whether or not it is a digital or analog front end and each on an individual basis, against every other... because other factors play a big part in the failure or success of a systems sound. It all comes down to how well a whole system is "executed" irregardless of format.
The things that make analog so potentially great is what also makes it so potentially bad. Sad, but i think true.
So, my bias is that cartridges have more potential to be better music transducers than digital files because they are like things they intend to imitate... they are things that vibrate.
And my EXPERIENCE thus far confirms that.
Probably the best digital i have ever enjoyed was watching nirvana unplugged on dvd through the rest of my system from a player that i picked up for $50 used on craigslist (at one time it retailed for 1200).
The sound was absolutely amazing.
That is a well recorded sparse sound and there is the visual cues too which all helped to create a wonderful spellbinding experience. Not to mention the songs themselves were great.
Tim, my opinions are not static or rigid, they are pliable and open to change.
