Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

RE ***It will be even easier to tell the difference blindfolded, as your sense of hearing will be heightened. A great many of the people in concert halls with their eyes closed are not sleeping - they are listening better. ****

Who said anything to the contrary? I don't even address that topic at all. Forgive me but , I think you misunderstood the whole point of my previous post. I won't go over it again.

RE***there is no way a recording could ever be mistaken for live music, unless one has very bad ears indeed. If one cannot hear the difference, that is a problem, and your ears should be checked.****

I think i have a pretty acute ear, and have heard a few systems, and have been able to pinpoint their strengths and their faults and the same goes for my own system. I have heard alot of bad systems and a few really good ones. In retrospect i realize i have lived with alot of bad systems posing as hifi. Also i own an acoustic guitar that is made of all real hardwoods and real bone nut and bridges, not plastic and laminates, so i have some understanding of what "real tone" sounds like.

Live events have sound problems too! just like home systems and i can pinpoint problems at live events.

I went to see dylan in 2008. The sound was atrocious and dylans frog voice (now in its 70's) wasn't much better (that is if your expecting to understand the words).

You know what i got out of that event? It was not the sound bit it was the visual that gave me the rush! and the knowledge that dylan was 20 feet away from me. It was not the sound. It was seeing him in person. If the sound of that night had been recorded from the perspective of someone standing on the floor and pressed onto a record, i'm sure my system could reproduce with great fidelity , how terrible it sounded! (smile)(laughing)

Some of the pinpointing of sound problems i can articulate and some of it i just know something is wrong but can't quite express in words what the sonic problem is. It takes time i think to develop an astute ear and having an astute ear as you know, is not simply about how well you score on a hearing test, though of course that is very important.

Anyways, my hearing is within normal range. I do have a slight loss on the top end frequencies (a little more so in the left ear) but again it is within normal range.

RE***If one cannot hear the difference, that is a problem, and your ears should be checked.****

Maybe what needs to be checked is SOMEONE'S SYSTEM.... if they feel the disparity between blind listening at a live musical event and blind listening at home are not even close or as pleasurable? If your system distorts, or the noise floor is too high, if it is too warm or too clinical, if timbres and dynamics are suffering in high degree, than my claim, naturally will seem to be absurd but...i stand by my conviction that really great system's, at certain moments are just as good or very close to live [maybe even better! because they are produced and polished further from the individual tracks that are laid down].

The technology has come along way and with careful system matching, exotic materials, etc, the sound is approaching ..."fantastic"

There has never been now or in the past a hifi system that can even recreate all the dynamics and overtones of a cymbal crash, let alone a whole drum set and orchestra.

Think about the foolishness of someone closing their eyes,listening to a pair of Ls3/5A (No slightintended)and being foolish enough to say that, yes the whole Duke Ellington band appeared in front of me.

Talk about imaginations running wild!
And people laugh at folks who claim to hear power cord differences?

You just cannot get anywhere near the sonic wave attack of live instruments with any home system, no matter how tight you close your eyes, and no matter how much attention and money you've spent on gear and room tuning.
It ain't gonna happen.

I can tell you that when I play bass and stand next to the drummer,I don't have to close my eyes to get the full measure of what he is doing.

You can almost feel it like a presence all it's own.

Also when a live band is playing, the whole room resonates,and not just from volume,we can play soft.
But even at soft ,low volume there is still a lot of air being charged and moved by the sonic waves from the instruments, and let's not forget about how everything in the room including the audience all contribute to fine tuning the wave launch.

Try duplicating that at home, in a small room or a large room with just yourself or a couple of friends.

I think people are quite good at recognition and erroniously lump this in with accuracy.

Most of us have systems that can reproduce a sax well enough that we know we are hearing a sax and not a trombone.
HiFi systems are great at this, that's why it's called Reproduced Sound.
But there is so much missing that it can never be called Accurate sound.

I have also never been fooled into believing I was transported to the concert even when watching well produced 5.1 music videos.
Entertained yes, but even with the added viual cues,there is no comparison.
Being there ,live at the concert can be reproduced,but it's just that, a reproduction.

This is so elemental, I can't understand why people still make claims of the musicians, suddenly appearing in the room.

Yeah, a 20 piece band, and all instruments fit into a bedromm sized listening room.

It's like saying photographs of people and the people themselves in the flesh, were one and the same,indistinguishable.

Live music is an experience involving all the senses.
Listening to reproduced music involves one maybe two at best.

So how can reproduced music ever be called accurate?
How can any medium be called more accurate, when accuracy can't be achieved?

But, enjoyment can be measured.

It can be measured at the concert and in the home, and sometimes the intimacy of a home music session can be more enjoyable than a room full of obnoxious loud distractions.

To me, it makes more sense to search for the music,and the reproducing gear that ups the enjoyment factor,and not try to strive for something that's unobtainable, such as accuracy.

Besides how will you know it if you hear it?
And to what can you measure the degree of accuracy?
The sound of a live musical event?

Nope, sorry, that only happened once, and it's gone and it's just someone's interpretation of that event and it's now a shadow of it's original state.It's been altered, and distorted and shaped to fit someone's idea of what the sound should sound like, and that can not be the same as your idea.

So close your eyes as tight as you can and use your imagination, because in the end that's the best you can do.

Lacee, I agree with you completely. Great post.

Hi Mapman and Vertigo - first, Vertigo, if I misunderstood part of your post, I apologize. I am often reading and typing on here late at night when I am tired after a heavy concert, as I was last night and again now.

That said, Lacee is correct. I'm sorry, but there is simply no way that ANY audio reproduction system can possibly be mistaken for the real thing, even the very best ones (though picking the very best ones is of course VERY subjective). They may sound very good indeed, and I suppose it is possible that someone could prefer them to a live concert (something no musician would ever think, by the way). But to actually mistake it for the live event? Nope. Again, if you have a problem doing this, your ears are nowhere near as good as you think they are. It is not "very close," even in the very best systems, especially if we are talking acoustically produced music, and it never will be. Frankly, I am flabbergasted that the argument is even being made, especially by an audiophile! Not that a "better" or a so-called "golden" ear is needed. I stand by my statement that if someone cannot distinguish between live and recorded music, then they have a hearing problem of some kind.

"I stand by my statement that if someone cannot distinguish between live and recorded music, then they have a hearing problem of some kind.”

Maybe not a hearing problem, but a listening problem. All of our senses are subject to the selectivity of our mind. Whether music or visual art, our minds tend to disregard or filter elements that are subjectively less important than other elements. As an example, some people can be very content with severely rolled off frequency extremes while others will find it a critical omission. I hope I’m not offending anyone; all I’m trying to say is that when one audiophile doesn’t hear what is so clear to another, it is not necessarily clinical but perhaps a matter of focus.