Digital amp beat them all? Audio Physic Strada .

...after auditioning TACT RCS2 in my analogue setup I've said to myself addressing my dealer: How dare you to give me that artificial mega-buck crap???... and came back to my simple and passive preamp. Was this an attempt to "correct" or digitalize the turntable's ability to naturally image without any correction engine...???

Yes the signal is being sampled to be transfered to the digital domain and than amplified with room correction or other artificial imaging that can be set up through the appropriate software.

Marakanetz, can you be more specific as to the abberations you heard via the Tact? I do believe that a turntable requires some "correction" (RIAA) to restore the original sound. Edle, I believe it is possible to keep the signal in the digital domain with out converting to analog. I also believe that most new recordings are mostly digital requiring analog conversion on most home systems. Blind prejudice is not going to further the development of our hobby. Call me a heretic, but I prefer digital to the scraping of stone against plastic at varying speeds with little opportunity to reconcile the unavoidable inconsistentcies of differing speaker /room interactions.

...first RIAA is needed for the records produced before 1954 i.e. before RIAA standard of mastering records. So RIAA equalisation makes nothing to the records produced after 1954(or maybe earlier).
Second somehow the placement of the musicians in the stage had been altered as to comparing to the no-preamp. Every instrument sounded brighter but at the same time clearer. The worst thing happend to the human voice that is being first echoed wherever you need it and wherever you don't and again changing(doesn't matter sometimes to worse sometimes to better) depending on the recording.
The thing is that my analogue rig is well established and reproduces darn good whatever had been placed on the record and in most of its cases do not need a correction or any artificial imaging. It has no floor or ceiling and images to the level of live performance exept huge symphony orchestras that need to be heard live only.
How can Tact reproduce 8Hz? To tell you simply it can't since digital freequencies are limited. With larger number of upsampling you may improve bass but the highs will cut off. So any digital device might be good for all audiable freequencies but in order to image it has to use a digital correction engine like in Tact.

Well, according to the measurments in Stereophile,the
monoblocks are down 1 dB at 100 kHz..
I also make a translation from german to english, and quote
Stereoplay:
"Madonnas voice seems -while the other amps make it compar-atively cooler and more pale, more free, more female and warmer" .
I, for my part, have a pragmatic attitude towards audio,
if it sounds good, it is good, independtly of the technique
being used. So I will look forward to see the opinion of
other magazines about the Stradas.There is a mag in Germany
called Audiophile (owned by the same publishing house as
Stereoplay) that will publish a review in their next issue,
will be out in September. Audiophile´s favorites are e.g.
Accuphase A-50 V, Lamm M1.1, Pass X 600, ML 33H, and Spectral DMA-360. No Krell amp reviewed,yes I´m not a fan
of Krell.
Better still, will be to find out for ourselfs, if digital
amps can be superior, but for my part I dislike shows.
Having heard to many probably good products sound terrible, e.g.an expensive new loudspeaker from an European company that begins with L, this winter in a show in Stockholm. And
a lot of amps that were clipping........
BTW, wouldn´t it be a good idea to have different fees at
shows;by paying extra (one day), there could be a (strict)limitation in the numbers of visitors!
Then it will be easier to us, to find out if digital amps
can compete with "traditional" amps. Please be open-minded!

Aren't digital amps and TacT's 2 different things with different uses? Why summilarily dismiss all digital amps because you don't care for what a TACT does? Because they are both digital? Contempt prior to investigation is generally not the best approach. I have a Spectron Musician II digital amp and do not find it dry or artificial in the least. It is superb in clarity, imaging, highs, lows, and very neutral to my ears. It will be even better after I get my Supratek pre delivered. And the list price is about half that of the Audio Physic Strada. Please listen to one before you tell people it sucks cause its digital. Some well-respected ears have spoken very highly of the unit. If you think it sucks after a listen, well thats fine and I would respect your opinion. After all, matching taste with equipment is part of the fun.
Patrick