What is needed to have the best CD/Digital sound?

Justin,

All I'm saying is that the richness you enjoy may well be the result of distortion of commision or omission. Each transduction process in which energy changes form, i.e. acoutic to electrical or mechnical or magnetic or whatever is frought with technical and production compromise. I suspect most recording studios use direct digital recording, because analog tape is difficult to manipulate and subject to deterioration.

db

Don, now I see your point. No doubt transductions are potential and real sources of distortions and LP does add another layer of transduction.

I still have trouble reconciling that fact with my own listening experience: if digital SACD/CD is a more accurate reproduction than analog LP, why did LP sound closer to the original master tape than SACD/CD? It must be that the subtractive distortions in SACD/CD muck up the sound more than the additive distortions in LP. The only encouraging thing is that LP is—or should I say was—a technology near its peak whereas digital media still have a lot of room for growth. But to improve a technology, we must first recognize its existing or hidden problems.

As a research engineer, I’ve been humbled too many times to hold any hubris about a complete theoretical understanding of a new technology. We thought we understood quantization and dithering errors at the introduction of CD and foolishly proclaimed its sound “perfect.” Then jitters came out of left field and bit us in the behind. We are just as confident now that our current digital media (SACD/CD) can capture and reproduce all the nuance of music. Simple listening tells us otherwise. I think it would be far more productive to acknowledge current limitations of digital technology and spend time figuring out its remaining (hidden) problems.

I for one would love to enjoy music in my old age without having to clean another LP.

Have a nice day!

Justin,

If I understand you right, you listened to the analog master tape, a CD, and an LP of the same recording session. Is my understanding correct? As I wrote in an earlier post, I suspect most current recording is direct to digital, because analog is more difficult to manipulate and more degradable.

I gave away all my LPs, except for my Westminster Lab series and a couple of early Capitol Full Dimensional Sound (FDS) recordings. These, of course, are monophonic and of mainly historical interest.

db

Tubes are certainly not necessary. Some of the best digital i.e. Reimyo, Electrocompaniet, Oracle, Audiomeca et.al is solid state. The design, parts, and build quality is far more important. After that good isolation and cables will take care of the rest. Good luck.

Might want to consider a computer based source - less jitter. There is a lot of info on this topic on audiogon.