When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Learsfool,
It`s fine that you1re a professional musician I don`t think it gives you any more or less authority on the topic. I have several good friends who play music for a living and when listening to music together in various home systems with a digital source have expressed complete joy and emotional connection with the performances. These people have had exposure to good analog and enjoy that as well. These sources were the Well tempered table and a Linn LP12. I certainly agree with fast42 and niacin, a properly setup using high quaility digital sources can sound absolutely soulful,passionate,vital etc. We have at times listen to the same titles in both formats to compare, one is`nt consistently superior to the other.

Learsfool, thanks for the thoughtful response. Unfortunately, however, your guess was wrong -- I am particularly interested in achieving the results I mentioned in the very areas that concern you, "the human voice, or other acoustic instruments, such as a full symphony orchestra". I have experienced one of the world's most respected classical guitarists playing on a couch opposite me, my brother blowing on a saxophone full bore a few feet away, and a time listening to a big band in full cry, where I stepped around the typically hopeless PA setup, and stood right next to the front side of the low stage, only a few feet away from the trumpet and trombone, etc. The latter experience was magnificent, effortless and massive sound; as a test, I "shouted" at the top of my voice during a dense passage, but could not hear myself at all, while the sound from the instruments was effortlessly enveloping and flowing over me, fantastic stuff. This level of reproduction is my benchmark ...

All those deficiencies you mention can be there in setups, but, and sorry, "distortion is distortion is ...". A very key point you make is "analog has more surface noise - but this type of distortion is not embedded in the music itself, and can be listened through". That is exactly the principle that I use for making digital playback (which is what I am using exclusively) work properly. Yes, the type is distortion is "different", but can, and I repeat, can be reduced to the point of being effectively, musically, inaudible. This is nothing to do with readings someone has got on a distortion meter, they are about as useful as saying a car has been measured as being capable of 100mph, for picking which vehicle is superior on the road!

I have certainly been able to enjoy, on a digital setup, the famous climax of Beethoven's 9th with the impact I mentioned earlier, and at the other extreme, the earliest recordings of Melba, 1910's or so, and the ambience and realism of the piano accompaniment in the distance delicately and convincingly captured ...

Frank

Kijanki, you are correct that I was speaking of the recording process, and not the playback; you are also correct that most audiophiles will be much more concerned about the playback. My objection is much more to the process of digital recording and processing, and what it does to the sound in the first place, long before anyone's playback system can get involved. Digital playback systems have indeed come a long way - I agree that SACD sounds better than CD, and I have heard a couple of 24/192 masters, which do sound pretty good.

Mapman, you are certainly correct about younger people hearing high frequencies better. It is also an unfortunate fact that everyone in my profession is guaranteed to lose at least 20% of their hearing during the course of our careers, due to the sheer decibel levels onstage. I'm not anywhere near that mark yet, but I should be wearing earplugs more than I do. I try to resist temptation to play my system loudly at home, and I try to avoid any other noisy environment when not at work.

Charles1dad, I didn't and wouldn't say that being a professional musician gave me any more authority on the technology; I was just explaining where I was coming from. That said, I do obviously have great familiarity with what acoustic instruments and voices sound like before they are recorded, and I am well qualified to judge whether a recording has captured this or no (even if I don't always completely understand the technical why of it). A performer's passion for the music should come through no matter how bad the recording and how bad the system it is played on; this is not what I was speaking of, nor was I speaking at all of enjoyment derived from listening to performances - for me, that goes without saying. For any musician, the performance always comes first - the recording is a very distant second, even among those musicians who also consider themselves audiophiles. If one is too busy listening to the recording or the system to enjoy the music, than priorities are most definitely in the wrong place, IMO.

Frank, while I think I understand where you are coming from now, we will definitely have to agree to disagree that "distortion is distortion is..." For me, it is not a matter of what types of distortion digital has managed to eliminate; it is a matter of what is not present in a digital recording that is in an analog one. To say that digital throws the baby out with the bathwater would be grossly exaggerating the case; but I and many of my fellow musicians do believe that digital recording/processing simply removes too much information (especially timbral and spatial information) from the music somehow, and I know more than a few recording engineers and equipment designers who agree.

Learsfool, I would just take issue with a couple of your points, if I may ...

"objection is ... the process of digital recording and processing, and what it does to the sound in the first place, long before anyone's playback": as the only way to know what 'has been done' is by monitoring via a playback of some form, how you can know when the sound has gone "astray". How you do know that the recording hasn't been "perfect", and that it isn't the playback at the recording location that is at fault. And before you say, of course the recording engineers are using high performance, professional equipment, remember my comment about a car capable of 100mph -- it's straightforward to make a car capable of staggering speeds, whether you to want to take a ride in it is another matter!

"what is not present in a digital recording that is in an analog one" and "removes too much information": this type of comment is still made over and over again, and waves a big flag to me that says: digital distortion in the PLAYBACK!

Vinyl has a distinctive, characteristic distortion of pops, crackles and whoosh, tape has one of high frequency hiss, and digital has one of sounding like information has been lost! Granted the latter type of distortion IS disturbing, of course it shouldn't be there, but getting rid of it is NOT solved easily. If it were, none of this type of discussion would take place. But it can be solved, many people have largely done it, there are comments by those who have transcribed good vinyl recordings to digital and then find it almost impossible to pick whether it is the LP or the digital copy playing. What the person has done, of course, is exactly equivalent to having a very high quality accoustic horn gramophone set up in the recording studio with a microphone stuck in front! And it worked ...

Frank

Learsfool, My friend who works for very large recording studio said that they got rid of very expensive analog tape recorders more than 10 years ago and everything since is done digital. Your ears, being in orchestra, plus experience with live instrument sounds, is better than mine (I'm sure), but how many people can tell just by listening if LP was recorded from analog or digital tape? I cannot do that, but even if I could detect small sound difference I would still prefer version without hiss of analog tape.

Such hiss can be suppressed in CD playback by de-emphasis but as far as I know cannot be removed from LP playback. On the other hand - de-emphasis feature of CD players is almost never used since everything is recorded digital (no tape noise) these days.