When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Detlof: your description of the sonic differences between analog and digital is superb!

Detlof, I now understand what you meant. . . in spades. . . but only a few months ago I was slightly less aware of the pervasiveness of the issue of black-inter-track background vs in-track musical silence. Since I have replaced my trusty Maggies IIIAs with the Vienna Mahlers, I have become increasingly upset by the cavalier attitude of those recording engineers who cut off a recorded track before all harmonics have decayed, all ambient echos have subsided, and the recording venue has returned to a state of baseline quiescence. Similarly, I get even more annoyed when a track starts at the very millisecond of the attack transient, or even worse, a couple of milliseconds into the attack without letting me hear the 'new' acoustic--which on a revealing system is positively gross sounding: The transition from black opacity of absolute lack of sound to acoustics 'in medias res' and viceversa is disconcerting, and most unmusical. With my current system, on a reasonable track which has not been recorded by implanting a microphone surgically into the uvula of the vocalist, those very faint ambient cues a--musical and not musical--are present and obvious. The true 'black' background exists only between tracks, and is. . . shapeless. A good acoustic track, recorded live or in a studio, brings to me the sound of the silence of the venue. Related to this is the problem of sudden engineering splices in the recording created out of acoustic context: the new fragment may have been inserted correctly into the final recording, but its low level ambient signature may sound disconcertingly different from what was heard in the previous millisecond. My source is the TEAC X-01 Limited CDp.

gentlemen:

what does sound have to do with soul ? have you ever heard a musician play in a poor acoustical environment where the sound was poor ? yet, one might say "he plays with soul".

i am afraid one may be looking for sould in the wrong places. if there are complaints about sound quality of recordings, that has nothing to do with soul.

sound quality and soul are two different issues,. at best soul inheres in a performance by a human being. sound quality has nothing to do with it. in fact a great sounding cd may not have much going for it as to performance. one could possibly say that such a performance lacks sould, while it sounds great.

this discussion belongs in the music section. it has nothing to do with digital or analog. the medium is not the issue.

Guido, since English is not my mother tongue, I would not have the vocabulary to describe what you have so beautifully put forth, it is now my turn to say that I understand what you mean... in spades! Thank you!

Mrtennis,
Yes, we do not speak of sound here, we speak of music. The former of course will not, the latter however may touch the soul. Of course it is both semantically as well as psychologically not quite correct to say that music has soul. Music may move your soul. Per se however music, let us take a Bach fugue, is a mathematical construct within a certain set of rules and boundaries, written down to be turned into sounds, which, when performed, we, especially if we have been socialised within the same cultural context where these compositions stem from, will percieve as music. Music, as we all know, can have an emotional impact on us, will trigger feelings, which sometimes even will touch the realm of the transcendental. Such music, we say colloquially " has soul " . There is a beautiful phrase in German which points into the same direction: Here we say a certain interpretation of a certain composition is "beseelt", which is best translated as "endowed with soul". I think basically up to here, we are in agreement. I would also see eye to eye with you in your statement, that quality of recordings have nothing to do with soul. I just have to think of most of HP's (TAS) favourite list of recordings and to remember how often some of them bored me and left me unmoved. I liked the sound, but not the music.
I also agree with your statement, that at best soul inheres in a live performance. I suppose we are in agreement, that most of us in our hobby try to come as close as possible to our perception of live music through our rigs. Now, just speaking for myself, I have lots of redbook Cds the sound of which I find great. Amongst those -within the classical realm- there are only two performances, solo performances, mind you, one by Hilary Hahn, the other by Janos Starker, which really move me and let me forget both rig and medium. I could recount infinitely more instances of analog rendition, which will do the same for me. This is only me naturally, hence of no statistical relevance at all, I realise that, also of course, as you say, this discussion could very well be held within the music section of A. as well. However, within the context of certain shortcomings which digital still to this day seems to have vis a vis LP or analog tape, in the rendition of the total "gestalt" of a musical performance, the chances are great, that LPs will get under your skin much more often than digital would. So, even though I would wish that it were not so, the medium, especially to someone deeply spoiled by live music, is still quite an issue to me and hence reason for me to join this discussion just here, where I find, it rightly belongs.

Drubin,
thanks so much "for the flowers". I just read your comment right now after having written the above. Glad I'm not alone on this......
Cheers,
D