When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Puh-leeaze. Any piece of music that can be so easily killed just by digitization, well, it must not have been very soulful to begin with.

People who think vinyl is "soulful" and that CD's aren't, they clearly have no historical perspective. They're the same ones who would've argued during the days of wax cylinders that audio recording was anti-musical, and that music should be recorded only as sheet music. Yet somehow, the soul of music just continues to pervade all of these ignorant arguments.

The point is we need to keep the heat for high rez. there is a seroius to say digital is already perfect or maybe even too good for the masses. Sampling rates are just part of the problem.

"Although digital may be more detailed, and even gives more detail than analog does(in a way), when will it convey the soul of music. This has escaped digital, as far as I can tell."

Have you tried any of the current DSD recordings?

my thoughts are that digital gets let down through the transfer stages of becoming a CD/SACD,etc.

It (digital) has probably a more accurate reproduction of a master tape than a vinyl master/pressing.

Why? As I record my LP's in a DSD format for convenience and availability, I find it hard to discern between the LP and the digital playback of it in DSD.(Korg DSD recorder). As I get into PCM, the quality starts to lessen and differentiations start appearing. Probably also less data space is required as we go down from DSD to 16/44.1. In easier terms I would say 45rpm presings better than 33rpm, etc.

So digital can convey the soul, but I feel during the transfer chain we are not getting the best out of it and it starts to loose out.

Hence we have all these formats such as High res downloads, SACD, Reel to Reel, XRCD,K2HD,etc.

Redbook certainly does not have enough space for the amount of music record companies want to put on it.

Record companies are also tactful for the fact that if they eventually do let out a quality so close to the master tape -then the game's over for them- as they will never be able to sell another version of a 're-mastered' 'higher ultimate quality' ,etc. again. After all how often have the Beatles, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Rolling Stones have been re-released and we know we haven't seen the last of it or a special edition.

So my final view is that vinyl and digital both have different presentations and if you can get lost into either of them more easily, you will feel the soul. Easier on vinyl though.

Cheers,

Neville

Nevillekapadia - SACD is DSD