When is digital going to get the soul of music?

I have 5 sources to deal with on my system (in order of general priority):

1) CD
2) vinyl LP
3) Internet radio (Roku Soundbridge)
4) Fm Radio/tuner
5) Cassette

99% of my listening these days is with the first 3. I hardly ever listen to FM anymore and I only use the cassette for old cassettes I recorded years ago and still like but haven't replaced on vinyl or CD.

Even my $129 pure digital Roku Soundbridge sounds very satidfactory to me in more cases than not. I accept the sound quality of internet radio for what it is, which ain't half bad these days...better than FM for sure, and the variety of music to listen to is unlimited.

I agree with all the comments about tuning for source. Admittedly my system is driven by LP, but open reel tape seems to fare very well with the same tweaks.

There was a time when I put all my effort into making digital right and at one time I had my system where digital and analog were very close. One day a friend who had not visited in a long time, a guy with excellent ears, listened with me and pointed out the fact that I had managed to "down grade" the analog source to make the digital warm and friendly enough to enjoy.

After that, I returned to my quest to make the music as dynamic, transparent, resolved and emotionally involving as possible and when that formula is applied, analog excels and CD falls.

These comments apply to my system for the last (approx.). 20 years, with multiple analog rigs and multiple digital rigs.

Oddly enough, the comments by Mapman about Denon digital hit home. I've found it's easier to live with a Pioneer Elite, Denon or Sony CD player and let it fall where it may. These lower end machines error on the side of softer and warmer, making it possible to press the resolution of analog to the max without the digital driving me crazy.

When I go for super high end digital, I fall on either side of a line. Tune to throw away resolution so it's less offensive, or press for resolution that tries to approach analog and wind up with uncomfortable sounding music.

Again, maybe it's an equipment thing, but this formula has held true for dozens of analog and digital front ends, as well as four preamps, five amps and two very different speaker systems.

Relating capturing the soul of the music to sound quality is only relevant to audiophiles.

Young ears, for instance, are, in general, oblivious to the digital artifacts that some audiophiles find so offensive, unless the young person in question has trained his ears to hear these artifacts and judge them to be objectionable.

Sophisticated musicians, not rock, hiphop, etc., must train their ears to be able to play proper pitch, tone, etc. To other people, this practice will interfere with your finding the soul of the music.

Most people my age can probably recall being lost in the music coming out of a cheap AM radio with a cracked speaker, blissfully singing along, dancing, or playing air guitar. Distortion measurements were probably in the 25 - 50% range, but man, did that music sound good.

I have no doubt that the golden eared, analog only, perfectionists' systems sound better than mine, way better. But I don't want to have to buy a system like that, tweak it constantly, hunt down audiophile recordings (old or new), wash them a couple of times and turn off the refrigerator and A/C to enjoy my music. If you enjoy doing all that though, it's fine with me.

I want to be able to listen past digital grunge, or analog grunge for that matter, and feel the joy or sadness or anger or whatever, expressed in the music. I need a much better system now to be able to do that than I used to, but I don't want to make it harder than it has to be because I have trained myself to be a human distortion detector.

So no offense to the Lp fans, but it is possible to get to the soul of the music by listening to cds. In many cases it may be easier.

Alberporter, I would not listen to the Denon, unless it was an APL, and then only briefly. As for Sony, or Pioneer Elite, no thank you.

In my system NOS digital reigns supreme, and I would not change it for all the vinyl rigs in the world.

Here, oversampling just ruins the signal, and makes music sound unlistenable. There should be no surprise. There is no way a device can cull distortion from a stream of complex waves without leaving damaged signal waves behind. Most systems are too dull to reveal this phenomenon.

Tomcy6, no reason we can't listen to a broken AM radio, our iPod, car radio, satellite music, Labtec computer speaker and Panasonic bedside FM.

What's wrong with having all these mediocre sources and a couple of excellent ones as well?

I own all these listed above, as well as an old Cathedral Radio that sits on my roll top desk. If you think any of those get you closer to the emotion and passion of music than a really excellent high end system, then you have not listened to the right high end system.

If it's not worth it to you, no need to be defensive. Audiogon is a high end site and you can expect some of us are pretty happy with the energy we've put into our systems and the rewards we reap from the work.