When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Seems simple enough. Obviously the entertainment industry, broadly speaking, has concentrated most of their research on video, not audio. They make much more money off of film than music. Any audiophile who is concerned with the progress of home theater systems knows this painfully well. The industry has always chosen formats much more suited to video, and audio has lagged far behind. In fact, they just did it again, as anyone who has been following all that mess knows.

Speaking of cameras, the same debate does still exist among professional photographers. Many like the convenience and speed of digital, and will take a digital camera on their first trip to a site and take literally hundreds of pictures, sorting through them later to figure out their perfect shot or shots. They will then take what they call their "real" camera on a subsequent trip to the site, and concentrate on the shot or shots they actually want to sell, and this is the one that is actually printed in your magazines, books, catalogues, brochures, what have you. I have a cousin who does that, and as recently as this summer was saying that that is still how all of the best professional photographers work. In this way, they get the best of both worlds, and save alot of time and precious film. Since digital video is so far ahead of digital audio though, this is much more of a real debate (amongst the pros, I mean). As I said before, very few professional performing musicians will argue that the best digital sound reproduction has surpassed analog. Unfortunately, we aren't the ones making the decisions in the industry. Profit rules - that's the American way.

Albertporter - I agree. CD sampling rate of 44kHz is a joke but it has nothing to do with being analog or digital. Imagine fast internet downloads in true 24bits/192kHz (around the corner). Would analog made from this material still be better?
Some people will always say so because they invested tens of thousand of dollars in the dead format and now are in denial. How great of the format it is if you cannot get most of the records you want and you have to settle for what they throw at you. Sure, there is a lot of used records (won't last forever) but what about new exciting artist/releases available only in digital.
According to RIAA total amount of LPs sold in 2007 was 1 million — a joke.

I bet you'll find people who believe that analog TV was better than HDTV calling HDTV too sharp, too bright and lacking the soul.

As for golden ear music teachers — all that I've ever met had horrible audio systems.

Albert,

I agree with your assessment that CD format is the limiting factor, not digital itself.

Still, technology details aside, many CDs do sound better to me than their lp equivalents in practice (and vice versa).

There is no practical winner in all cases. Just because a format has a particular capacity does not mean that it is always fully utilized to best effect. That is the case with both digital and analog recording products. There are good and bad products in any format.

Practically, what matters to me is what my copy of Seventh Sojourn or The Planets actually sounds like, not what the format it is encoded on is capable of doing.

The internet along with high bandwidth connections into the average home along with greater capacity storage devices is already starting to change things considerably, I think.

One thing that concerns me though is why should any company provide an audiophile affordable high quality digital sources similar to records when we're willing to shell out
tens of thousands apparently in order to get it? That doesn't make sense to me and does worry me actually quite a bit.

Albertporter - I agree. CD sampling rate of 44kHz is a joke but it has nothing to do with being analog or digital. Imagine fast internet downloads in true 24bits/192kHz (around the corner). Would analog made from this material still be better?

You're missing the point completely. Did you read what I wrote or just want to argue for digital? You appear to be a person without much experience that's angry someone would challenge your vision of the perfect sound forever BS they threw at us.

As for would 24bits/192kHz be better as a DIGITAL format, theoretically I would think so. There is no guarantee the record companies won't ruin that too, but I hope not. I'm ready to buy if they fix the problem.

Sure, there is a lot of used records (won't last forever) but what about new exciting artist/releases available only in digital.
According to RIAA total amount of LPs sold in 2007 was 1 million — a joke.

What does that have to do with this topic?

When will digital (CD's) get the soul of music?

No one said CD's were not a sales success, McDonalds is an even bigger success but that does not mean they are the best quality.

I've had a lot of CD players, some retail for more than $20K, there are big differences in quality with the best ones but the player cannot make up for the lack of resolution on current CD format. Of course a really great turntable cannot make up for a crappy LP either.

However, taking the best of each hardware and the best of each software, the LP is the winner when it comes to available formats at best quality.

Mapman - Good question. I don't think they know how to handle it yet. They shot themselfs in the foot keeping high prices and poor recording quality of CDs and sales are down (empty stores). They also loose a lot of money on stuff being illegally copied and are dramatically searching for the new, well copy protected format (SACD, HDCD). Latest, I heard, is CODE pushed by some artist (N. Young, Mellencamp). It is 24bit/96kHz 2 channel recording on DVD media at the price of standard CD. Latest Mellencamp's record was released on CODE (so I heard).