Has digital come close to or beat up analog yet ?

The diehards will continue to spew

HeHe, you said "spew"

Digital gave analog a bloody nose with a right hook. I'm pretty sure it's broken. Analog put down digital with a sucker-punch to the groin, and kicked'em while he was down. There is no clear winner, just a lot of cleaning up to do. For God's sake, will someone mop up that blood!

Marco

i wouldnt go that far....

the vpi scoutmaster is pretty darn good ($3000 with cart)... i dont think there is digital unit within a reasonable $$$ amount

Hey Mike, I'm an analog guy all the way (look at my system). Truth is though, bad phono, bad set up and / or bad cartridge and a high end digital and the roles can be reversed.

One of my best friends in my audio group has a CEC TL1X and an Audio Note 4X balanced. While his Aesthetix Io and Callisto are being worked on he is pinch hitting with VTL 5.5 (?) preamp.

Believe it or not, with that set up the digital is about even with the analog. When the Aesthetix stuff comes back the digital will improve greatly and the analog will walk away from it. I know this will be the outcome because until the Aesthetix was returned to be upgraded to latest, I heard this rig a hundred times.

Funny how much gear effects the end results.

i enjoy both formats and recent advances in my total system performance have likely moved digital a little closer to the vinyl in overall performance. seems that my GP rack has had a more positive effect on the emmlabs than the Lamm LP2 phono stage.

yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years, i got out the Furutech demagnatizer. then i pulled out two unopenned cases of Auric Illuminator. for the next few hours i painted the black felt marker on CD edges, cleaned CD's and then de-mag'd um. (i have an Audiodesk trimer on the way too).

i did this to about 15 of my most played CD's......listening to one while i 'did' another. this was a similar approach that i have taken with vinyl in the past.....kinda theraputic.

this process made a big performance difference.....more than i really expected to hear. the emmlabs already had as good digital performance as i have heard.....and this improved it even more (at least for redbook....i didn't tweak any sacd's). i look forward to what the Audiodesk can do.

my point is that when approaching digital there are ways to optimize it to get closer to what vinyl can do. resonance control, all kinds of disc tweaks, power cords, even CD-R methodologies......all are wringing a little more out of those silver discs.

digital has come 'closer'......but in most ways is not really close. when i put on one of my 'really good' Lps......game, set, match.....to vinyl.