How much do you need to spend to get digital to rival analog?

@mikelavigne 

From your linked article:

It was painfully obvious that sub-order harmonic distortion and noises were getting in. It was the result of high-frequency things creating distortion components that were not harmonically related to the lower frequencies.

This is why you're never going to be fully satisfied with your standard digital recordings. DSD at least does a better job of moving more of the offending distortion to higher frequencies, and covering up or filtering some of this distortion. When that distortion is removed, digital can be made to surpass all analog.

Some would argue that it is painfully obvious that that statement is gobbly-gook :-)

Not yours, the one you quoted.

@atdavid

Serious question for everyone. How do you reconcile claiming that vinyl is technically better ... not euphonically better, but technically better, when the vast majority of recordings made in the last 2 decades have been recorded on digital? Even where the original is analog, many remasters have been remastered via digitization? At some level, Vinyl is just another "DAC" for many records.

Digital recording is non-destructive and far easier to use. That said, there are still a select group of studios and artists that still record using reel-to-reels.

Reel-to-reels have a soft clipping nature, as it reaches 0. Those analog recordings keep part of their characteristic sound, even if they're converted to digital and processed digitally. This is why some mixing and mastering engineers will transfer their mixes/masters to reel-to-reel, before - or as - their final format.

What analog system lets me listen to internet radio?? :)