When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Objex and Charles1dad, in a long ago posting on this thread, I basically said what you said plus the additional observation that neither was the equal of good magnetic tapes. I have since greatly improved my digital with a music server from Empirical Audio. This has been an awesome improvement, but now using a new BMC MCCI phono stage, I am hearing what I have never thought possible from vinyl. I often think vinyl cannot be achieving this detail, dynamic, depth, etc. You have to go into this unit with balanced ics, but wow!

As good as my digital has become, it will never equal what I am hearing from vinyl, but of course, all I need to do with my digital is to select from among approximately 175 albums from my Ipad using the Remote app and play it. I can then put away all my cds.

Tbg,
I understand your point and don`t for a moment doubt that in your current system the analog bests the digital. But on the other hand I`ve read numerous posts where someone states their digital front end (APL NWO 4.0M owners for just one example) now betters or at the very least equals "any" analog system they`ve ever used or have heard. It just goes on and on(as it always will) based on one`s latest experience with a given component. That`s why in absolute terms I can`t except the concept of "the best" in highend audio, there`re far too many varibles.

Charles1dad, typically, I would entirely agree. Listen to the BMC MCCI if you can, and you will understand.

We are getting much closer... I just installed a Cambridge DacMagic 3 and I am running 'hi-rez' 24/96 FLAC files from HDTracks.com via my Macbook Pro into it and the results are very, very good. (Using the digital-out headphone jack of the MacBook with a mini stereo to Toslink cable). Experimenting with both the Pure Music and Decibel software programs to play the files.

I won't say that all the music sounds as good as my vinyl rig, but I will say that it is getting much closer than ever before and listening to music with the hi-rez data files is darn good!

Play an uncompressed master file recorded in DSD, and played back through the same DSD recorder and you probably will be hearing a step above a top end vinyl rig and even RTR.

I enjoy both digital and analog mediums and respect that the need for both formats are required to enjoy music. But I always seem to be finishing each listening session with a few DSD master recordings, and realize that it is the chain of transfers that finish up on to a 5" disc, which lets digital down. In my view 16/44.1 up to 24/192 are still not good enough in capturing all the information fed through from an original master.

I cannot comment about DXD, as I haven't heard master files being recorded and then played back in this format, but it seems to be promising from some of the recording engineers that have used it for transfers.

The DSD files I am talking about are available for download (some free) from Blue Coast Records, where a few of the recordings have just gone straight from the mixer through to the A/D DSD converter with just the bare minimum processing used after this to make it available as a download.

Play these files through a DSD dac, and it is a different experience. The playback carries such a strong imaging presence, accuracy and depth of tone, vivid dimensions of artists and a robustness or subtlety in each note, that it is hard to imagine vinyl or red book ever get there. I feel this is mainly due to the lack of ability to either hold all the information or avoid change in accuracy of the original signal.

"To reproduce all the info on vinyl, chances are that during the lacquer cutting process if compression is not used, the present grove would just rip into the previous one. Hence we have more 45rpm vinyl to capture most of the info easily" - comments from a recording engineer who cut vinyl for 30+ years after hearing the DSD masters played back.

Somewhere earlier in this thread, I had written that vinyl has it all (soul) and digital(red book)does not. I would still think that vinyl has the edge over commercial mainstream CD and SACD helps to shorten this gap.

But I have changed my thinking, as I am hopeful that more of these DSD files recorded straight in this format and available for download start to materialize.

It will certainly provide us with a new level of playback accomplishment with plenty of soul.

Neville