When is digital going to get the soul of music?

We are getting much closer... I just installed a Cambridge DacMagic 3 and I am running 'hi-rez' 24/96 FLAC files from HDTracks.com via my Macbook Pro into it and the results are very, very good. (Using the digital-out headphone jack of the MacBook with a mini stereo to Toslink cable). Experimenting with both the Pure Music and Decibel software programs to play the files.

I won't say that all the music sounds as good as my vinyl rig, but I will say that it is getting much closer than ever before and listening to music with the hi-rez data files is darn good!

Play an uncompressed master file recorded in DSD, and played back through the same DSD recorder and you probably will be hearing a step above a top end vinyl rig and even RTR.

I enjoy both digital and analog mediums and respect that the need for both formats are required to enjoy music. But I always seem to be finishing each listening session with a few DSD master recordings, and realize that it is the chain of transfers that finish up on to a 5" disc, which lets digital down. In my view 16/44.1 up to 24/192 are still not good enough in capturing all the information fed through from an original master.

I cannot comment about DXD, as I haven't heard master files being recorded and then played back in this format, but it seems to be promising from some of the recording engineers that have used it for transfers.

The DSD files I am talking about are available for download (some free) from Blue Coast Records, where a few of the recordings have just gone straight from the mixer through to the A/D DSD converter with just the bare minimum processing used after this to make it available as a download.

Play these files through a DSD dac, and it is a different experience. The playback carries such a strong imaging presence, accuracy and depth of tone, vivid dimensions of artists and a robustness or subtlety in each note, that it is hard to imagine vinyl or red book ever get there. I feel this is mainly due to the lack of ability to either hold all the information or avoid change in accuracy of the original signal.

"To reproduce all the info on vinyl, chances are that during the lacquer cutting process if compression is not used, the present grove would just rip into the previous one. Hence we have more 45rpm vinyl to capture most of the info easily" - comments from a recording engineer who cut vinyl for 30+ years after hearing the DSD masters played back.

Somewhere earlier in this thread, I had written that vinyl has it all (soul) and digital(red book)does not. I would still think that vinyl has the edge over commercial mainstream CD and SACD helps to shorten this gap.

But I have changed my thinking, as I am hopeful that more of these DSD files recorded straight in this format and available for download start to materialize.

It will certainly provide us with a new level of playback accomplishment with plenty of soul.

Neville

digital can convey the soul of music is digital playback is via the right electronics. Try Naim cd555 with a 552 preamp. $60K later you have very soulful playback indeed.

Digital does have the soul of the music when mastered right and the same care is taken for setup. This new trend of knocking digital CD format is to pray another generation starts into this hobby.

That is not happening at the numbers that the boomers were in. Clean you discs, try a good CD mat and you may be shocked just how good a CD can sound, and I've had a large LP collection, and yes some LP's sound better, because the master tape was used and that was 40 years ago.

Who knows where that tape went when they mastered a CD, what they have been able to do in the last 10 years with these old analog tapes is amazing to me.

Digital as it's good points, but it always will sound different then a medium that uses vinyl, a platform made of different substances, arms and stylus all add up to a different sonics and color...so their is no absolute right one!

I can listen to my system and get pulled into the music like I did my vinyl in fact some newer cd's have sounded as warm as my 1st pressing vinyl with better dynamics and tone.

When are people going to stop asking this question and just go listen to the format they prefer?

Talk about a dead horse people.....