When is digital going to get the soul of music?

>>You are overlooking the Teac Esoteric VRDS transport. The manufacturing on this unit is way ahead of what Pioneer were doing with the Stable Platter.<<

Agreed. The Esoteric transport is the standard by which all others should be measured. This is indisputable.

Guidocorona,

You make a good point and I mostly agree with what you said. I think the "soul" of the music results from a good collaboration or synergy between the composer and the artist. And if the recording engineer and the technology he employs can preserve this "soul," and the playback system can pass it with a minimum of distortion and alteration then the "soul" of the music is finally communicated to the music system listener.

mr g, you make a lot of statements but you provide no evidence for them. just because you are a composer, that doesn't excuse you from being prepared to backup your position.

Plato, I was thinking about it, and I believe we may have forgotton one very important class of factors. . . that is the cultural macro and micro environments for all the stages listed before. Which may perhaps explain why the classical music of Southern Laos, of Tibet, of the Sarmatic Tuvan region, and of relatively nearby Croatia do not have much emotional impact on me. On these I would have personally to add much of popular music from both sides of the Atlantic pond.

D_Edwards, thank you very much for your input. I believe that people(including myself) need to re-read what you just said. Guidocorona, you have very good points. I have to mention that I believe that you need to have analog(pre-1982) to enter this debate.