When is digital going to get the soul of music?

Here is a total full-range computer-driven tube system for under $35K that was one of the best of show, voted by JA:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/empirical-audio-vapor-audio

The best sound I have heard at ANY show in 15 years of exhibiting at shows, including Stereophile, RMAF CES and Newport. Killer speakers too. I want some....

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Koplo, you said, 'no analogs at all, even at the loudspeakers' terminals.' Without 256 independently driven small drivers, how can you have digital to a speaker?

If you play the music from the hard drive into memory before playback, how would SSDs differ from HHDs? Also SSDs are too limited in size, especially for DSD native.

I think digital will swing fine if it will ever get the analog right, plain and simple. IMO, they can at least start with tossing ALL switching-mode power supplies into the garbage where they belong. (I no longer think they really have a place in any component. They just generate way too much noise).

Regards. John

BTW, check this out, it's a good read: www.audiostream.com/content/draft

Ivan, I would like to disagree with you on the subject of switching power supplies. Every power supply is "switching" if you think about it. Linear power supply takes energy from the mains in narrow current spikes. Width of these spikes is proportional to load (PWM) while "switching" frequency is 120Hz. Problem is that 120Hz noise is much more difficult to remove than high frequency noise. You most likely think of crude computer switchers that made bad rap for all of them. Modern switching supplies can be so quiet that some designers use them in preamps where efficiency is none of concern. Such switchers have many advantages over linear power supplies. To start with they are line and load regulated. They are also quieter switching at zero voltage/zero current (linear switches at max voltage). Remaining noise is much easier to filter out. They are also much smaller. Transformer switching at 100kHz can be 10x smaller than one switching at 120Hz for the same power not to mention huge capacitance necessary to remove 120Hz ripple and provide any load stability in linear supplies. Because of all that designers used them for class AB amps as well. Newest class AB Rowland Model 625 amp uses SMPTs switching at 1MHz. Why, then, there are still so many linear supplies? Perhaps because switcher is much more complex to design properly while market tends to believe (including you) that it has to be big and heavy. There is also catchy word "linear" that is very misleading. It is big, unregulated, noisy and it is also a switcher - a very crude one.