When is digital going to get the soul of music?

I'm sorry, Learsfool, like Kijanki, I'm going to have to do another round ...

A "thought" experiment: a classic Mercury recording session happening in the 50's, with that very straightforward microphone setup, feed the signals to both a modern, high quality analogue tape machine, and a current digital recorder setup. You're saying that, in every case of analogue tape and digital recorder setup, that the digital will be markedly inferior to the analogue upon playback, at that recording location on the day -- am I correct in understanding you?

If I am, then I would still beg to differ, because you still have not separated the process of recording from the process of playback! My experience is not yours of the quality of playback of digital, so my conclusion is that the recording has worked well enough, but the quality of playback varies quite markedly, and this includes the playback at the desk of the recording engineer! I have experienced very high quality analogue playback (and, conversely, highly excrutiating, blurred and harsh sound from very expensive vinyl setups), and have sat several rows back from the stage soaking up the vigour of Beethoven's 7th, and still have no difficulty saying that digital has no trouble, no trouble whatsoever capturing that experience ...

Frank

Well said Albert! Thank God for Reference Recordings HRx! This is probably as good as a mortal can get. :-) I am in total disbelief listening to these converted to LPCM DVD-A on my NWO-M! Amazing!

I guess what is not realized on this thread is that the best analog is what the best sound comes from, and if you can get digital to sound close enough, you already have a winner. IMO, of course.

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev

LOL Kijanki, funny last comment on your latest post. It is not necessarily that I want to convert everyone to my beliefs, in fact there is more good vinyl for me if they don't! I am just trying to explain my own point of view. As always, it depends on what one's personal sonic priorities are. Those who place eliminating surface noise as their highest priority will of course always go the digital route.

I have never been involved with an orchestral recording session that did not involve multiple mikes. Even for my orchestra's archival recordings, which are broadcast on the local classical station, they use at least eight. I am not sure why this came about, either; as you say it doesn't really make any sense. I think it may be a case of "because they can." It also gives the recording engineer MUCH more personal control over what the end result of his mixing sounds like (as well as being much easier to edit - any idiot can make a recording with a laptop now). They almost never listen to what the musicians have to say about it, even the conductors nowadays very rarely get involved in what the actual end product actually sounds like. It's a crying shame, really. Technology winning out over aesthetics yet again.

Frank, your "thought experiment," unless I am mistaken somehow, is the exact experiment I was talking about having made several times, most recently about a year and a half ago. I am also not sure how you can conclude that a recording must have worked right without playing it back...

To put a finer point on this, I could agree that digital can decently capture the experience you mention (Beethoven 7 several rows back), this I am not denying; my argument is that an analog recording will capture it much better yet. Again, it depends on what your sonic priorities are. If one's priority is to recreate the timbre of the instrument, especially it's overtones, and the ambient noise of the room along with it, then yes, the analog recording was indeed markedly superior every time. Digital processing simply removes too many overtones from the very complex timbres of most acoustic instruments - something many designers are still trying to solve. Unfortunately, though in other aspects the technology has markedly improved, in this particular area (which is of course fundamental to musicians, who work very hard to get as close as possible to the exact sound they want) there has been very little, if any progress since the technology was invented.

Albertporter, -- "analog is still the best available to us as consumers, even if the master was digital" -- I obviously wasn't in the groove (no pun intended!) when I read that, your statement does not make sense!

Each process in transferring sound from a storage medium to our ears is either A->A or D->A, that is, either analogue to analogue, or digital to analogue.

Going from digital master to vinyl playback are (at least) the steps:
1) D->A: digital goes through DAC in mastering setup
2) A->A: analogue signal drives the cutter for the stamper disc
3) A->A: cartridge mechanically vibrates a coil or magnet to create a low level signal for the preamp
4) A->A: preamp boosts signal to create an analogue signal for the power amp

and you're saying that is superior to:

1) D->A: digital goes through DAC to create an analogue signal for the power amp.

Are you saying some sort of magic is taking place in those extra A->A stages? Yes, some type of filtering is taking place in these processes, but if you want that type of change of sound to occur just add an extra box to do some processing into your home setup. Of course, some people add tube circuitry into DAC's as a means of achieving this end ...

Frank

Learsfool, I'm pleased I did get the first bit right, that is, I was correct in understanding what you were saying.

But, as to "how you can conclude that a recording must have worked right without playing it back", I'm very sorry, another "thought" experiment, and bear with me please ...

Recording a signal digitally and playing it back, for BOTH monitoring AND home playback purposes, is in essence two key processes: A->D, a conversion from an (microphone) analogue waveform to a digital representation (which from then on can be captured with zero distortion), and D->A, the digital representation converted back to an audio signal driving, say, headphones. Let's say, for argument, there was 10% distortion, loss of information, change of sound or whatever you want to call it in this overall process. Where was this 10% lost? Was it:

1) 10% loss in the A->D and 0% in the D->A, OR
2) 0% loss in the A->D and 10% in the D->A, OR
3) 5% loss in the A->D and 5% in the D->A, say

Based on my experiences I would, as a very rough guess, say:
0.1% loss in the A->D and 9.9% in the D->A

and it appears to me that you think it's 1), that is
10% loss in the A->D and 0% in the D->A

That's where we differ, and that's why I believe digital CAN do the job ...

Frank