2. digital
  3. 138199-1252

Pieces of music that digital can't get right

Ok I have a litmus test for digital when ever I have the rare option of upgrading my digital front end. Its tough on digital. Brutally tortuous and unforgiving. Digital proponents have a difficult time accepting these sonic tests. 
1. Ok here is the first one. On the opening of America's "Ventura Highway" the opening dueling guitars are ambient and bounce off each channel very pleasantly in the analog domain. In the digital domain the channels are totally separate and too clean and sterile lifeless sounding. They are  not talking to each other It was like this with ny Marantz 8005 but the SA-10 gets halfway there.
2. In the opening of "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles the electric guitar sounds alive with ambiance and decay. The Digital is clean and lifeless.
 Ok am I right with these observation?. I have a pretty good SACD player in SA-10. Its no slouch. Do the mega expensive super smart and accurate DACs get my two above mentioned  passages right? Or are we hearing colored vinyl artifacts. Well if we are I like the record better!
blueranger
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

After listening to the " Ventura Highway" track again, I decided that the bass flabiness may be due to USB, but the lack of depth and splashiness of the close cymbols is probably compression  The cymbols in the back are actually okay.  The vocalist is actually fairly narrow and 3-D, although not very deep.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

blueranger's avatar
blueranger OP
719 posts
 
Thanks Steve! Wow I didn't expect such a detailed answer. Mike
.
jim204
881 posts
 
I have just downloaded the 24/96 file of Igor Levit called Life. It is the equivalent of two CDs and I am stunned by the quallity of it and if this is a recording that digital can't get right I will eat my Stax phones. The recording places you up close and personal to the piano and it is a trully sumptuous recording. It does benefit with a bit of wellie on the volume control but you will be awed by the volume and dynamics of the piano. The second track is the very famous chaconne of Bach's violin partita in D Minor but not by Busoni as we are usually given but the reworking by Johannes Brahms and to make things worse this is for the left hand alone. I was so shocked by it that I played it three times in a row and it is 15 minutes long , this guy defies logic with a superhuman technique and a piano tone to die for. It is the best piano recording I have heard.
More to discover