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Does Digital Try Too Hard?

Digital glare. A plague of digital sound playback systems. It seems the best comment a CD player or digital source can get is to sound “analog-like.” I’ve gone to great lengths to battle this in my CD-based 2-channel system but it’s never ending. My father, upon hearing my system for the first time (and at loud volumes), said this: “The treble isn’t offensive to my ears.” What a great compliment.

So what does digital do wrong? The tech specs tell us it’s far superior to vinyl or reel to reel. Does it try too hard? Where digital is trying to capture the micro details of complex passages, analog just “rounds it off” and says “good enough,” and it sounds good enough. Or does digital have some other issue in the chain - noise in the DAC chip, high frequency harmonics, or issues with the anti-aliasing filter? Does it have to do with the power supply?

There are studies that show people prefer the sound of vinyl, even if only by a small margin. That doesn’t quite add up when we consider digital’s dominant technical specifications. On paper, digital should win.

So what’s really going on here? Why doesn’t digital knock the socks off vinyl and why does there appear to be some issue with “digital glare” in digital systems.
128x128mkgus
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sonicjoy
146 posts
 
Oh so you are going to open that can of worms again Huh? LOL!

Technically digital does not have a sound. All sound that we hear is analog. So when we say something sounds more analog that is a good thing. The more analog it sounds the better. So it is a complement when digital audio is compared to analog. Digital to analog converting is very difficult to get right and it has taken a long time to learn how to do it well. I think the technology is finally maturing to the point where it is very close to sounding like analog. My CD rig is so close to my TT sound that I enjoy both equally. Banishing noise and jitter, better power supplies all that stuff has improved greatly.
As always in this hobby YMMV.   
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
324 posts
 
The solution was clean power - via power conditioners, power supplies and quality copper cabling.

That makes me happy to hear as I am about to embark on a journey to clean up the power going to my CD player. 😀
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
I used to have digital glare many years ago. Not even a hint of it now.
Yeah, me too, when it was in it’s infancy yes it did have glare courtesy of the "brick wall filters", and bad analog stages jiter ect ect, but now it’s got more detail, separation, smoothness and dynamic range than even the best vinyl, even playing the older CD’s, which btw have so much less compression than today’s reissues and remasters.

These new reissues/remasters are relentless and can wear you down, everything’s the same volume level there’s no breathing space in between notes, that’s probably what the OP is hearing. And those ones are the compressed ones you get on Tidal, Spotify ect ect ect

Just look at the compression in the later reissue/remaster versions of Sade’s Diamond Life.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Sade&album=Diamond+Life
Green is uncompressed red orange yellow is very compressed.

Cheers George
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
324 posts
 
Some recordings are better than others, especially ones not affected by the loudness war. Even the best recordings can sound harsh at times. As I upgrade my system, digital glare seems to diminish. Next up is a power supply upgrade. I’m thinking that will help a lot. 
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