The very best sound: Direct to Disc

Raul, with all due respect, I'm an electronics technician and I have to take exception to "MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS". That sounds good, and at one time that was my bible, until I discovered that if you can hear the music, disregard the distortions.

I was 100% specifications until my prized SS Pre bit the dust, and I decided to try tubes. I got a loaner PV-10 that had seen better days, there was apparent both noise and distortion in that unit, yet it was more musical than my SS gear.

Enjoy the music with as little noise and distortion as possible is my new motto.

With tubes there is always some noise, although it can be "inaudible", noise and tubes go together, even when the noise is so low that you can't hear it; consequently, Raul is saying always use SS without saying it.

Check out 2L for great sounding digital

i do have maybe 10 2L high rez files on my server. they do sound very good.

have not acquired any in a while. i'm streaming new music mostly, or acquiring vinyl. not much actual digital media ownership pondering.

Mike - both Tidal and Qobuzz have 2L content :-) O Death is a reference for me

I have most (but not all) of the Sheffield D2D albums.  I bought them as they were released, back in the mid 1970s and early 1980s.  A couple that haven't been mentioned here, but are exceptional both musically and in the recording, are Dave Grusin, 'Discovered Again' and the James Newton Howard Quintet which featured David Paich, Steve Porcaro, Jeff Porcaro, and Joe Porcaro.  Those guys were mostly from the group Toto and James Newton Howard went on to be quite the Hollywood musical score master.  Here's an interesting story.  Back in my early days of working in the CE industry (which I worked for 40 years and have now recently retired) I had a nice acquaintance with Andrew Teton, the General Manager & Sales Director for Sheffield Labs.  At CES, back in 1983, he was kind enough to get me the Special CES Preview Edition of the James Newton Howard forthcoming D2D release.  This was produced and engineered by Bill Schnee, who did a marvelous job with it and other D2D recordings.  Andrew gave it to me as a gift.  How kind of him.  To this day it is probably my number one, best SQ album in my collection.  Very, very musical with bass that is as real as it gets and the kick drum will hit your chest with authority.  Its absolutely phenomenal!  The music is progressive jazz/fusion and is very appealing to most anyone. Every time I make a change to my system, even just a new "tweak" item, I use this LP to test out any perceptible change to the SQ.  If you can find a clean copy I highly recommend it.  It's a real "WOW" event for your listening experience and pleasure.
Enjoy the music!