When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Kijanki

"I remember seeing similar threads on SS amps lacking the soul compare to tube gear"........

And I could imagine that I wrote them long ago after getting my SP10! Only I would have just said 'music'. :-)

09-12-08: Kijanki
Albertporter -

"You're missing the point completely" - I'm not sure what point it is since you use a lot of words with just one conclusion that current CD format is not as good as LP. I never said it is, and there is no need to jump at me such unpleasant way. I merely reacted, if you read the tread, to statement that digital will never rival analog. I don't understand logic behind it - that's all. Many of my friends claimed the same at the beginning of digital photography and now all have digital cameras. I am not an angry person - just read my other post but it seems to me that with claimed experience and amount of dollars you "throw" at me you are a little arrogant. It might be better if you will not respond to my posts and I will do the same for you.

The reason I responded the way I did is because of your comments:

And the LPs are made from digital master - that's funny...

Yes, some LP's are made from digital masters, just as some CD's are made from analog masters. Again, the master is not the issue, it's a failure of the music business to deliver a high quality product.

And mostly this:

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?

Sorry if I took it wrong, but it appears from that comment that you believe "converting" to analog is what this is all about. I have no interest in the format, only the quality. My reason for being angry is not at Audiogon members but the 20 year plus promise that "just around the corner" the "perfect sound forever" format will deliver as promised.

I've had at least a hundred thousand dollars worth of digital through my system, most on loan or product that was a perspective item for review. I also bought a lot.

When a promise is made over and over and disappointment follows there are a couple of reactions a person can have. Sadness that it's not what you were expecting, and later (after the same things happen fifty times), anger that you were taken advantage of.

I've had this enough times to be angry, I've given up on digital other than for background or breaking in components. Happy for others that have made it work, perhaps we hear differently or it's a system thing.

Holy XXXX guys. . . what happened all of a sudden. . . Everyone feelin' hurricane Ike approaching mayhaps? G. (grins!)

We have more choices now than ever...

This may be part of the contributing problem to the debate. When there was only vinyl, the recording/engineering/pressing of the album was either good or bad, and it was usually pretty obvious. Now, we have many choices of sources to go along with our dizzying choices of amps, pre-amps, speakers, DACs, etc ad-nauseum. Add to that the fact that we listen to music everywhere (home, car, work, outside, in bed, etc) and in every way (two channel, multi-channel, iPods with ear buds, computer audio with headphones, boom boxes, car stereos, hotel lobbies, etc) it's near impossible to produce music in manner that suits all venues equally.

There are a lot of modern pop and rock albums that I really like that are hard to tolerate on my $20,000 hi-fi but sound great on the stock system in my car. Just the opposite is true for some of my favorite jazz albums - too much ambient noise in the car to really enjoy it.

Yes, the soul of music is the music itself; the performance. But being able to get to it - to connect to it? It's unfortunately become somewhat medium and venue dependent for a lot of music. Buying multiple versions of an album to find the one that you connect with gets expensive. I mean, how many of us own at least three versions of 'Kind of Blue?' Worth it for a handful of recordings, but near impossible for modern recordings.

Albertporter - I'm sorry for my sharp response and my words toward you. We both feel the same dissapointment.

Maybe lack of better digital media is related to quite large number of audiophiles claiming that they will never buy digital or the greed of the companies selling SACDs for over $30 or the lack of the will from government to push for the standard. (We have in US many different cellular companies and two different non-compatible standards while whole Europe has one unified standard/billing and much better coverage).

My experience is very limited and more oriented toward electronics than audio but I enjoy good sound and practicallity of digital media. Better, smoother digital format is around the corner, I'd like to think, but the same time I'm buying a lot of standard CDs I will be stucked with.

I know, we should concentrate more on music than audio, but when I listen to thin sounding Julian Bream CD with hiss of analog recording in the background I don't enjoy it as much as I should especially after listening to beautiful recent Telearc DSD recording of David Russell with completely black and quiet background and full round reverberating sound.