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

Raul, somehow you have managed to miss, or ignore, the point I was making. Moreover, you are also being very selective and “political” with your disagreements.

No common sense? C’mon now, language barrier or not you must know that this will be a very provocative characterization. I will ignore it as it goes precisely to the point I was making and which seems to elude you.

The bias I referred to is your bias to what can supposedly be “proven” by way of measurements and by your chosen “facts”; by your definition of “common sense”. Whether the subject of the bias is digital or not was not really the point. With respect, you need to understand more about the nature of that which you often use as a “calling card” of sorts. The quality of Art is not determined by technical matters or measurements of such. In fact, the reliance on those criteria to determine the quality of Art is antithetical to the very nature of Art and to its appreciation.

Frankly, I’m not quite sure why you are arguing any of the points being made. You acknowledge that both technologies can sound good and that both can be enjoyable. I said so as well. You point out that both sound different in fundamentally different ways. Ditto. If they both sound different in fundamentally different ways then they can’t both sound equally close to the sound of live music. Right? They each have differences and each deviates from the sound of real music in different ways. For me, the best analog sounds closer in the ways that matter most to me. For you, apparently digital does. So what, precisely, is the problem?

Raul, for me it is not a question of what I “like” for the sake of liking it. I like what like in recorded sound because more than fifty years around the sound of live music for hours each and every day tells me which technology, when well implemented, gets closer to that sound in the ways that matter most to me. You then suggest I ignore what my ears tell me and to instead “SEE the reality”.....right.  

Btw, I know it pains you have a dialogue with someone with so little common sense, but why do you really no longer want to have a dialogue about this with lowly me? Could it be that the emperor’s wardrobe is not quite as extensive as is claimed?
Regards.

@mikelavigne

please cite examples so we can all listen and comment. or come over to my room, bring your files and dac, and we can both listen and see where it goes.

or is this just more theory?

I’m going to put the onus back on you.

Please record your analog material to digital - without clipping - so you’re using the same master as source material. Level match the two sources, and record the output from your system. Compare the waveforms. If you so choose, you can share the results here.

Others have already done similar, in a listening capacity.

"My initial impression of the Pinot ADC was that Andreas had accomplished a spectacular achievement: a sub-$10K Quad DSD stereo analog-to-digital converter with easy-to-use software for simple stereo transfers from analog to DSD (in .DFF format). And it sounded brilliant! Show conditions at AXPONA 2016, of course, but even allowing for that, the Pinot was clearly something very special, working in tandem with the rest of the Playback Designs Sonoma stack.

In fact, Andreas not only gave us quick A/B comparisons of analog source (turntable and Brian Tucker’s Revox RTR) vs. Quad DSD output…all of which were very impressive…but he also did a single blind test just before the end of the show. Several of us who were very experienced, acute listeners, were invited into the Playback Designs room. Andreas did switching back and forth between an analog source and the output of the Pinot Quad DSD feed. We were given several opportunities to guess which was which.

The three of us who were invited to do so guessed wrong. We thought that the Quad DSD feed was actually the analog source! One therefore wonders: Does the Pinot’s Quad DSD sound better than the analog source?!"

"Since the Pinot ADC was only going to be there for the afternoon, we did a temporary connection to one of our LP systems so that we could do some sample Quad DSD transfers of needle drops that we would do. We used the exceptional KRONOS Pro Turntable for this task. Its output was cabled with Kubala-Sosna Elation! unbalanced cables to our standard reference, the Audionet PAM G2 Phono Amp with EPX Power Supply. That output went to the Audionet PRE G2 reference preamp, which passed the output via its balanced monitor outs to the balanced inputs of the Pinot ADC. Andreas’ notebook computer with his Sonoma Recorder software, a very compact, easy-to-use recording system, was also connected to the Pinot. This allowed us to do several needle drops and listen to them, while the notebook recorded those drops to DSD .DFF format.

Those transfers turned out incredibly well. A quick listen to the results, before the Pinot had to be packed up again, indicated that the Quad DSD transfers were indistinguishable from the KRONOS playback that Andreas and I had just heard. One was the opening track from Dream with Dean on Analogue Products QRP 200 gram vinyl; then we did a sample track from the brilliant reissue of the Decca Espana with Atualfo Argenta (incredible album and transfer!), and finally three tracks from the excellent recent reissue of the MPS LP How I Really Play by Oscar Peterson. Really breathtaking, believe me."

"The Pinot Quad DSD ADC arrived very recently, and I haven’t had sufficient opportunity to give it extended trials. Nevertheless, my listening sessions at AXPONA 2016 with the Pinot, as well as the brief time that I worked with Andreas to do some needle drop transfers to Quad DSD in late May, using his Sonoma Recorder software, show that the Pinot is a superb analog-to-digital converter. The results with the Sonoma Recorder app were mind-blowingly good, and reasonably easy to do, giving the real feel of LPs/tapes in Quad DSD mode. Close your eyes, and you might as well have the RTR in the same room…"

https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/impressions-playback-designs-merlot-quad-dsd-dac-syrah...

I’m going to put the onus back on you.

Please record your analog material to digital - without clipping - so you’re using the same master as source material. Level match the two sources, and record the output from your system. Compare the waveforms. If you so choose, you can share the results here.

i do it every day.

i have 600-700 2xdsd needle drop files, and the associated Lp pressings to those needle drops. the 2xdsd files sound great. listen to them often when i’m not in the mood to change sides.

but......when i compare directly; game, set, match to the original vinyl. every time.

i don’t do waveforms. i can’t reach my ’zen’ state with them. :-)

i have dubbed many of my tapes, and my dubs are indistinguishable from my originals. i can tell you that a digital file copy of those dubs would not be......indistinguishable that is. but that is a Studer A-820 dubbing to another A-820.

as far as RTR tape deck references, a Revox would not be quite up to the task as a reference for what tape can do. solid tape playback deck though for sure.

Andreas Koch is a smart guy. has been to my room and stayed with me back in the day. i had the very first Playback Designs MPS-5, the first Playback Designs product. was my digital reference for 9 years.