**** .....you are making up a property and then assigning it to a particular technology that you like. That is your choice.
Am I pretty certain you have never spent time in a recording studio with access to both tape and moderately good digital to know that the qualities you assign to "analog" simply do not exist? Yes. ****
With all due respect, as concerns the above comments, you don’t know what you are talking about.
I generally don’t like to talk about my professional experiences on an Internet forum; in part because I understand that we all have different experiences and it is pointless, not to mention disrespectful, to try and convince someone that his experience is ill founded. I prefer to simply put my observations, based on my experiences, out there and anyone can make of them what they will. Having said all that, make of this what you will and for whatever it may be worth:
First, as I wrote previously, both formats can sound excellent. The differences being discussed are certainly subtle; but they are very real nonetheless. So, for me, this is not about putting down one format or the other; both excel in particular ways. It should also be pointed out that, as any good audiophile knows 😊, one man’s “subtle” is another man’s deal breaker.
I have been a professional musician my entire working life (45 yrs). I have performed in both acoustic (probably mostly) and sound-reinforced settings hundreds (if not thousands) of times. I have also spent hundreds of hours in recording studios and in control booths where I have, on several occasions, been able to listen to playback from both analog tape and digital formats. My opinion and that of many colleagues (not all) has been that ON BALANCE analog tape (and good vinyl playback) gets closer to the sound of real. So, yes, this may be about “preference”....preference for what sounds closer to real. It should come as no surprise that all this is particularly obvious in acoustic settings where most if not all instruments being played and recorded are acoustic instruments and not amplified or electronically processed in any way.
Anyone who has not had any experience listening to playback of a performance in a control booth would be shocked at just how much degradation of musical nuance the performance suffers by the time it reaches the consumer, no matter the format or record/playback technology used. In my experience the most damage is done in the area of the sense of aliveness or micro dynamics. It is mostly in this area of the total sonic experience that we can hear most of a performer’s expressive qualities; subtle phrasing details and overall musical intent.
Some of us are very sensitive to and so very focused on issues of timbre as the deciding factor of what is “accurate” or not. There is no doubt that timbre is related to and impacts our perception of dynamic nuance. However, in my experience it does so only to a degree. Playback equipment can sound fairly truthful timbre wise, but sound dynamically dead. Conversely, some can err on the side of timbral euphony and still sound dynamically alive.
Neither format nor playback gear is perfect and we are all sensitive to particular areas of the complete sonic picture of a musical performance more so than others. Given the excellence of both formats and gear available today it seems silly to argue about any of this. However, for me, and whatever technical reasons there may be for this, ON BALANCE, analog simply has more of that “thing” that can sometimes almost fool me into thinking that I am listening to the real thing. Digital simply doesn’t do it nearly as often.
Happy listening.
