When is digital going to get the soul of music?

I'd like to add a "lay techie" comment. I hope that digital does improve to the point that it is consistently better sounding than vinyl. I'm NOT saying that all of my LPs sound better than my "redbook" CDs because they do not. But, IME and to my ears, subject to a few exceptions, my vinyl set up is better sounding than my redbook CDP.

Nevertheless, I am optimistic that the music industry at large will settle on a uniform digital format that will set a new standard of music playback and that will reliably out perform vinyl. Believe me -- I like to load and play for 60 or more minutes without worrying about picking up a tone arm at the end of a 15 to 20 min. playback, or replacing styli after 1500 hour so hours of use.

One other observation. ARC has been aggressively pushing forward on the digital front, now offering a new dedicated REF DAC and REF CD-9 CD player (replaced the REF CD-8). These new offerings are ridiculously expensive ($30K for the REF DAC and $16K for CD-9). Interestingly, these new products provide a half a dozen or more formats from which to choose. I hope ARC guessed it right. ;>')

Cheers.

Naim gets to the soul of music, IMO.

As soon as adequate isolation is used from ac to digital and digital to analog. It's a magical transformation. Cheers.

I tend to agree with Koplo above. A good setup, though always sounding subtly different, compared to a good vinyl setup, sometimes even betters it in subjective listening tests, EXCEPT for big orchestral classical music. Redbook, in what ever way it is processed, just cannot do it here to my ears. Neither can SACD nor can HiRes files.
However with voices, chamber music or jazz combos, in a well set up computer rig, the soul is definitely there.
If even then you cannot hear it, the reason for it lies not in the music, but elsewhere.

When I had my Oppo modified only after 3 trips maybe 4 trips back to EVS was the upgrade done closer to my spec's but each time I had to cover the shipping and non of the error were my mine. I felt this was unfair to say the least. The player is still working and still supplying a sound like a pig getting killed by a knife thru the back of the neck or something. When turning off the OPPO unless the amplifier is off a very loud startling squeal sounds off thru the right speaker, I complained about this totally uncommon issue but was assured "everyone knows they are supposed to turn off their amplifiers before turning off the blu ray player, right, does everyone know that, I didn't think so. After being quoted an exact dollar amount for the work I requested after each and every time the layer was either sent back or personally delivered Ric asked for more money as though the original agreement was simply a piece of paper to light a joint on because it wasn't worth the paper it was written on. After paying for enough gas to drive to LA and back I decided enough was enough with the extremely shady operator who couldn't get the unit right the first time, the second time it sounded broken, the third time was a nightmare from hell and to this day I'm not sure what if any of the things I paid for were bought and installed. I was forewarned by a couple of people to NEVER do business with this complete idiot but having know this guy for many years I didn't think things could get any stranger but I was so wrong. Now I'm stuck with a piece of junk I've got over $2400 dollars in, so do yourself a favor and pass Ric by and have a person who knows how to treat other people do your upgrade, who needes all those hassles and for what, a bunch of pieces he makes by hand for next to nothing and he'll install a multitude of incorrect parts just so you'll have to send the darn thing back to you so he can figure a way to milk you like a cow if given the chance. Don't go there, you've benn forewarnd by a stupid buyer of his ridiculosly inexpensive upgrade that can or will take up to six months if he can get away with it. Totally unreommended.