When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Aplhifi, thanks for the correction, but that was fantastic Nat King Cole. I had one question, though. You showed by that direct from turntable to digital disc that it's not necessarily digial, per se, that is a problem. But I think we played a cd that had what I would call unnatural detail in their singing. With Elvis and Nat, it was a given that that was how they sounded. With the all digital cd, we heard details that almost distracted me. I'm thinking that I heard one voice where it seemed like it was coming from the left side of his throat. I'm sure that was where it was coming from, it's just not what I would expect to hear live. It can't be the recording technique after 25 years of digital, can it?

Robm321, I used to listen to vinyl exclusively throughout the 70's and most of the 80's and I still like the sound of it. What I didn't like is the inevitable deterioration that results from playing records. In addition, back in the heyday of vinyl, about 2/3s of the records I bought were so poorly made and exhibited so much surface noise, ticks and pops, excessive warpage and harshness that they were nearly unlistenable. I'm sure that whatever miniscule vinyl production is done today is done much more meticulously than it was back then but I think that deterioration is still a problem. One could argue that many CDs are unlistenable but the reasons tend to be poor recording or mastering - or possibly large amounts of jitter inherent in the pressing. Now maybe I didn't have the most state of the art playback system. My vinyl setup consisted of a Micro Seiki DD-33 turntable with a carbon graphite tonearm, a Denon MC-301 cartridge, and a DB Systems preamp with separate power supply and head amp. This is a very modest setup compared with the many thousand dollar systems that are available today. I'll also admit that I haven't heard the absolute state of the art in digital playback but I can set that my digital setup now outperforms my vinyl setup of yesteryear. My main point is that if most people believe that vinyl actually does sound better, it's not because it is more pure or provides more actual information. It's because the types of distortion it creates are complimentary to the source material.

Hey guys.

Guidocorona....PPR

Yes this is a very logical way. The thing is Price has nothing to do with the quality of the product, Wine/hi-fi. If you didn't have this barrier of " cash " you would be drinking other stuff. The thing is when wine is done right,and there are so many factors to producing great wine that the price sky rockets for the simple reasons of supply and demand. The other factors are ignorant rich guys who drink 2k bottles of Bordeaux wih poached eggs and macaroni and chesse just to impress. There is the other factor of if mac and egg is ready to pay 2K then next years batch will be 2.5K regardless of average ,if not bad production/year. The product is "in " it's cool it's "i've made it" etc...

Now hi-fi is exactly the same. Nothing to do with the actual production from sunshine,rain ,earth ,altitude... to your glass,or recording session ,musicians,atmosphere...to your ROOM, to your ears.....cheers.

Nothing to do with ss vs tubes vs digital vs TT.

Sorry

Should read...."everything to do with the actual production from sunshine etc...

TVAD and others,

My comment was a little unfair. I think it is more a matter of preference. I am far from an analog purist. I listen to CD and SACD more than analog - mostly because I don't always have the time to mess with all that is involved.

I enjoy both formats and probably overreacted. There's no sense in making blanket statements since people have different preferences.

Let me restate and say I prefer vinyl if given the choice, but definitely will continue to listen and continue to improve my CD and SACD performance.