When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Shadorne, just for the record, I don't bash digital. In fact I like it and can get drawn into the music with a well recorded cd. The Zanden combo is magnificent and what it does to redbook is simply amazing and also the DCS combo with SACD gear can be highly satisfying. USB dacs, like the Spoiler are pointing a way into the future. However, as Nilthepill so rightly points out, analog is closer to the real thing. If you are familiar with that, there is no way around it. Anyone is free to prefer whatever he or she likes. That is entirely another matter. Therefore I tend to consider all the bickering about what is "better" futile, boring and besides the point. I you like big dynamic swings, black silence between notes and an etched out presence of voices and instruments within the soundstage you MUST prefer digital. If you wish to "feel" the presence of the hall, where the music was recorded, consider "blackness" as unnatural, rather have the silence between notes "breathe" as the sound softly decays in minute reverberations, you will prefer LPs or prerecorded tapes, because it comes closer to what you might hear in your favourite concert hall. As most things in life, it is a matter of taste, where everybody is free to prefer what is pleasing. Anyway, even the best rig, be it analog or digital falls sadly short of the live event. Neither digital nor analog provide sufficient "air", that is space where the sound , emanating from every instrument, seems to float and spread in space, to come even close, except that analog sometimes seems to mimic that just a tad better.

I know we are supposed to have live music as a reference, I think that analog is, at least, a reference for digital. By that, I mean that sometimes we don't realize where digital errors, until we hear some analog. Analog is better than no reference at all. That being said, I've been listening to digital exclusively for awhile while I get my analog going. Alex, of APL, proved to me that digital could be music-which I didn't believe when I started this thread.

I can't stand the hiss and pop of LPs. True great analog may be the one and only original open reel tapes. LP is a CD equivalent to the Master tapes.

With proper DAC, output stage design and implementation, digital will win over LP if you consider ALL aspects of listening music: black background, dynamic range, details, etc. LP may edge out in a few areas, but OVERALL digital will win.

I can't stand the hiss and pop of LPs.

First, the "hiss" is not from LP's but from the original analog master tapes. LP's don't create hiss. Second, this kind of comment about not being able to tolerate the "pop" and noise of LP's is usually stated by people who have little or no experience with high end or state of the art turntables, which are extremely quiet.

With proper DAC, output stage design and implementation, digital will win over LP if you consider ALL aspects of listening music: black background, dynamic range, details, etc. LP may edge out in a few areas, but OVERALL digital will win.

If only this were true I couldn't be happier. LP's are a pain in the a**, but they are so superior sonically that we are forced to deal with it. They don't just edge out digital in a few areas, they are vastly better in nearly every area.

It's both funny and bizzare to those of us who listen to high end examples of both, when people claim that digital is better. It really isn't even close.

Davemitchell is right to my mind and ears: If a LP is properly cleaned and well treated, there will be no clicks and pops on a properly set up TT and quite often, Abe, there is a hell of a lot of hiss on prerecorded open reel tapes. I know, I own and listen to a lot of them. Abe is right about dynamic range of digital, but wrong to my ears about "details" and if you are familiar with live music and take that as reference, "black background" to my ears is completely unnatural ( just as a noisy one of course ). Rather the background in a good concert hall is full of tiny reverberant clues, it "breaths" so to speak and I would expect that as well from a good recording of classical big orchestral music. Even the great Zanden or the DCS gear will not pick that up, a good analog recording of a classical piece will. The proof lies in the listening.
In fact I am wondering, if by the means of clever advertising and constant repetition of it, one of the central failures of digital, the lack of rendering of all the necesary ambient clues in a recording have not been turned into the so called advantage of "black background". There is simply no such thing in a live event as every regular concert goer knows.