The very best sound: Direct to Disc

With tubes there is always some noise, although it can be "inaudible", noise and tubes go together, even when the noise is so low that you can't hear it; consequently, Raul is saying always use SS without saying it.

Check out 2L for great sounding digital

i do have maybe 10 2L high rez files on my server. they do sound very good.

have not acquired any in a while. i'm streaming new music mostly, or acquiring vinyl. not much actual digital media ownership pondering.

Mike - both Tidal and Qobuzz have 2L content :-) O Death is a reference for me

I have most (but not all) of the Sheffield D2D albums.  I bought them as they were released, back in the mid 1970s and early 1980s.  A couple that haven't been mentioned here, but are exceptional both musically and in the recording, are Dave Grusin, 'Discovered Again' and the James Newton Howard Quintet which featured David Paich, Steve Porcaro, Jeff Porcaro, and Joe Porcaro.  Those guys were mostly from the group Toto and James Newton Howard went on to be quite the Hollywood musical score master.  Here's an interesting story.  Back in my early days of working in the CE industry (which I worked for 40 years and have now recently retired) I had a nice acquaintance with Andrew Teton, the General Manager & Sales Director for Sheffield Labs.  At CES, back in 1983, he was kind enough to get me the Special CES Preview Edition of the James Newton Howard forthcoming D2D release.  This was produced and engineered by Bill Schnee, who did a marvelous job with it and other D2D recordings.  Andrew gave it to me as a gift.  How kind of him.  To this day it is probably my number one, best SQ album in my collection.  Very, very musical with bass that is as real as it gets and the kick drum will hit your chest with authority.  Its absolutely phenomenal!  The music is progressive jazz/fusion and is very appealing to most anyone. Every time I make a change to my system, even just a new "tweak" item, I use this LP to test out any perceptible change to the SQ.  If you can find a clean copy I highly recommend it.  It's a real "WOW" event for your listening experience and pleasure.
Enjoy the music!

I still have a sealed copy of Dave Grusin Discovered Again.  Also have an unsealed copy I have listened to.  I did sell one of two copies of the original Lincoln Mayorga DtoD with the Scully lathe on the cover for over $300.  I can't understand why anyone would have paid that much for it.  As impressive as it was when it first came out, musically it is pretty stiff and that is understandable given what's involved in making a DtoD. Interestingly, when that first one came out, a good friend of mine invited me over to his house to listen to a new recording.  He cued up a 15 ips tape on his ReVox and hit play.  My jaw hit the floor.  I asked when he recorded that and asked if he could make me a copy.  "I'll do better than that" he said.  "I'll give you the master".  That's when he handed me a copy of the record.  That was in the early 1970's in a college town hungry for audio equipment.  More crappy speakers were sold by means of using that DtoD as a demo source than you can imagine.  All the audio stores had a copy and I swear you could hold them up to the sky and see light coming through the grooves, they were played that frequently.