Buried in all of Guitar Sam hysteria on this and other threads re digital v. analog is the notion that to some people, digital, no matter how well done, strikes some people as inherently “wrong”. The counter possibility is also true, that vinyl (My experience with Reel to Reel is limited) sounds inherently wrong to others.
I am sure that this notion has been done to death here and elsewhere, so I will add just one side glance at the discussion. I firmly am in the digital camp; I remember becoming increasingly frustrated with the limitations of vinyl in the early eighties and to me digital was a godsend. I dabbled in vinyl a few years ago but it just wound up reconfirming my impressions and I made a nice sum selling off my analog rig.
My slant on this is that perhaps it is genre specific? I listen primarily to Classical. Digital eliminated the surface noise, pitch instability that warped vinyl provided, expanded the dynamic range, and in general allowed to me to hear so much more low level information that I was previously missing, even on budget equipment. I mean, entire passages, such as the chamber like episodes on a work like Mahler Nine, were now audible and deepened my appreciation significantly. I thought that friends that complained it was cold and sterile were nuts.
I then listened to an early CD transfer of a pop album that I knew well, Cat Stevens Tea For The Tiller man, in the late nineties and for the first time I thought perhaps I understood; on my nice fancy system this seemed to sound smaller, less warm than my aural memory of 25 years earlier listening on my parents KMart Special system. And as my systems became more revealing with time I began to hear some faults with early digital transfers of favorite Classical albums.
Flash forward another 10 years. I have spent several thousand dollars on analog trying to recover some magic. And I finally had to conclude that all the Classical, even the early digital albums, sounded better than the lp equivalents , even when I had shelled out 30 bucks for a 200 gram vinyl. And I preferred pop albums on CD, but here the gap was smaller.
Setting aside prog rock, Sgt. Pepper, Pink Floyd and the like, most Classic Rock of Pop that I listened to as a teenager feature electric guitars, electric bass, drums, maybe some keyboard. Compared to Classical or Jazz, the dynamic range is quite limited. With vinyl, with its decreased dynamic range, it can sound as if the music is more naturally frame. With digital, it can sound as if there is wasted space. Think of the way DVD players can crop the images on large flat screen TVs, particularly on older content. Like hey, I paid for a 65 inch screen, why is the image being shown at less than 50? Listening to pop music on vinyl is more like watching an old movie on a cathode Ray TV. Even though the the music and the reproduction have limits, the limitations are complimentary, so they seem to work together to some people.
I am sure that this notion has been done to death here and elsewhere, so I will add just one side glance at the discussion. I firmly am in the digital camp; I remember becoming increasingly frustrated with the limitations of vinyl in the early eighties and to me digital was a godsend. I dabbled in vinyl a few years ago but it just wound up reconfirming my impressions and I made a nice sum selling off my analog rig.
My slant on this is that perhaps it is genre specific? I listen primarily to Classical. Digital eliminated the surface noise, pitch instability that warped vinyl provided, expanded the dynamic range, and in general allowed to me to hear so much more low level information that I was previously missing, even on budget equipment. I mean, entire passages, such as the chamber like episodes on a work like Mahler Nine, were now audible and deepened my appreciation significantly. I thought that friends that complained it was cold and sterile were nuts.
I then listened to an early CD transfer of a pop album that I knew well, Cat Stevens Tea For The Tiller man, in the late nineties and for the first time I thought perhaps I understood; on my nice fancy system this seemed to sound smaller, less warm than my aural memory of 25 years earlier listening on my parents KMart Special system. And as my systems became more revealing with time I began to hear some faults with early digital transfers of favorite Classical albums.
Flash forward another 10 years. I have spent several thousand dollars on analog trying to recover some magic. And I finally had to conclude that all the Classical, even the early digital albums, sounded better than the lp equivalents , even when I had shelled out 30 bucks for a 200 gram vinyl. And I preferred pop albums on CD, but here the gap was smaller.
Setting aside prog rock, Sgt. Pepper, Pink Floyd and the like, most Classic Rock of Pop that I listened to as a teenager feature electric guitars, electric bass, drums, maybe some keyboard. Compared to Classical or Jazz, the dynamic range is quite limited. With vinyl, with its decreased dynamic range, it can sound as if the music is more naturally frame. With digital, it can sound as if there is wasted space. Think of the way DVD players can crop the images on large flat screen TVs, particularly on older content. Like hey, I paid for a 65 inch screen, why is the image being shown at less than 50? Listening to pop music on vinyl is more like watching an old movie on a cathode Ray TV. Even though the the music and the reproduction have limits, the limitations are complimentary, so they seem to work together to some people.